Olympic Travel Ideas - NYC to London via another city?
 

I am looking to travel to London to arrive for the last week of the Olympics (approx August 7th to the 13th). I am looking to keep my travel costs relatively low and the flights from NYC (where I am) to London during that time seem to be extremely expensive. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about traveling to another city in Europe for cheap and then either traveling to London via train, ferry, or budget airline.

I did a little research and it seems that flights from NYC to Dublin, Ireland seem to be the cheapest, but perhaps anyone has any other ideas or tips?

You could try Paris or Brussels. Both have nonstop train via Eurostar

While that might be true, Dublin still requires another flight to get you to London and that might be expensive (it might not be on Ryanair, but you should price it before committing). If you want to fly somewhere with easier access to London, then try Manchester or even Edinburgh. You could take the train down from either of those cities. Alternatively, you could fly into Paris and take the Eurostar.

But flights to the UK are almost always expensive in August. What is "extremely expensive" to you?

There are constant trains/ferries from Dublin to London, much cheaper and easier than flying.

I don't think you can easily expect to get a good deal on a flight to the London area one of the Olympics weeks, in prime-time August, so if you see something remotely reasonable grab it.

Thanks for the responses. The cheapest flight to London I have found is around $1,000 RT (Icelandair with a stop in Reykjavik). All other flights were around $1,200 and greater RT. Flights to Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Manchester all seem to be north of $1,000 RT as well. Iguess those are typical fares for summer to Europe, so maybe they are not "extremely expensive". I have found flights to Dublin for around $800 RT (Delta and USAir)....and one flight to Brussels for around $800 RT as well (Brussels Air).

A quick search saw RyanAir flights from Dublin to London for $65 RT which I think is similar to EuroStar from Brussels to London and would be easier since we don't have to leave the airport in Dublin.

Any other suggestions I am missing? I think the Dublin route might be cheapest.

A $65 fare on RyanAir may not cost $65. There are taxes and fees (many fees) for addons like luggage. I'm assuming you're traveling with suitcases? Well, you pay for that on Ryanair, as well as almost everything else. So just make sure that with everything added you are actually paying enough less than $200 to make it worth your while.

For me, I'd fly directly to London on Icelandair, but I do value convenience rather highly.

Those prices you're seeing are similar to what people were paying last year, and there is now an additional carbon tax on all flights to Europe. It's certainly not getting cheaper. Friends found a business-class sale on American last year and flew business class to Paris for about the same $1,200 in July, but that applied only from Boston. Boston flights do seem to be a little cheaper than flights from NYC, so you could look into that as a possibility, and you might find it easier to get from NYC to Boston than from Dublin to London.

If you really believe (as no travel professional in the UK does, and has never happened in any summer Olympic host city before) that the Olympics will increase travel to London, what on earth makes you think they'll increase the cost of travel more for visitors from America (an unpleasant overnight flight away) than from mainland Europe?

More people live within 2.5 hours travel time of the Olympic Stadium than for any major sporting event in history. Far more medals will be won by countries whose population mostly lives within 2.5 hrs than by the US (50 Golds in 2008 for the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands and Belgium vs 36 for the US).

If there is any sustained growth in fares into London (personally I think they'll collapse nearer the date) that growth will be a great deal more substantial in Eurostar and Ryanair tickets than in transatlantic ones.

Possibly not in flights via Dublin or Iceland. But, even if you don't believe the London Olympics will be the best possible boost to American tourism in France, there's a real possibility Eurostar tickets from Paris to London will end up costing more than the transatlantic flight.

I think you are being pennywise and poundfoolish to go through all that and the possible problems with connections in order to save around $100.

If you book at the 6-8 week prior window then you will get flights to Stansted from Dublin by Ryanair for €15 basic plus booking fee (€6) plus Baggage (silly money) Aer Lingus to Heathrow will possibly cost €30+ Air France €100+

If you do opt for Dublin I recommend Sail and rail, takes longer but no extra baggage charges and about €80 return.

If you fly into Dublin and then have to pay 80 euros (about $110) how much are you actually saving by the time you pay to get from the Dublin airport to the train/ferry thingy? It won;t be free. Nor will te trip from the train back to the airport in Dublin on the way home.

Are you saving a grand total of $50 per person to go through all of these machinations - versus the Iceland flight?