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Transoceanic flights to Europe (and Asia) have dropped significantly in price, due to arrival of many new discount airlines. Not only do the flights on these new airlines cost much less than what was common a few years ago, they have forced down the prices from more traditional airlines.

Don’t be overly concerned whether a discount airline offers tickets directly to the specific city you want to visit in Europe or Asia. Once you’ve found a good price to get you across the ocean, you can often tack-on an additional low-priced ticket to get to your final destination.

Norwegian Airlines. Flies direct to Oslo, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, and Rome, and then onward to many destinations in Europe, often for prices less than $400 round trip. Smaller carry-ons are free, but with the cheapest fares, you’ll need to pay for checked baggage, $45 each way for assigned seats, between $10-25 for each connecting flight, and for any snacks or drinks.

Flights depart from Boston, JFK, Ft Lauderdale, Orlando, Chicago, Austin, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco, although destinations vary for each departure city.

Level Airlines. Flies direct to Barcelona, Paris, Vienna, and Amsterdam. Fares start at $400. You’ll need to pay extra for bags and seat selection, but you can utilize higher-fare options to get different bundles of additional services.

Flights depart from Boston, New York, Montreal, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the king of low-cost carriers, WOW Air, has recently gone out of business.

Other low-cost carriers

Air Europa. Flies from Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York City to Europe via Madrid. Prices to Spain start at under $500, prices to the rest of Europe are a bit higher.
Aer Lingus. Has cheaper than average prices to Europe, via Dublin, from Boston, Chicago, Hartford, Los Angeles, JFK, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington Dulles.
Condor Airlines. Flies from many US Airports to Europe, via Frankfurt.
Icelandair. The grandfather of lower-cost travel to Europe, it is now usually underpriced by more recent arrivals, but can still wind up being an inexpensive option, and uses some underserved US gateways. Flights go through Iceland, and you can add a stopover for free, or for only a small additional charge.
Virgin Atlantic. Offers fares as low as about $500 to Europe via London. Gateways include Boston, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, JFK, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC.

Booking a separate positioning flight

If you can’t find good low-cost options from your home airport, your best option might be to purchase a completely separate airline ticket to one of a discount airline’s departure cities. For example, there aren’t many options on discounted airlines that leave directly from Seattle or Salt Lake City, but there are a lot cheap flights from the Bay Area. Rather than paying a much higher price to book tickets, on a more traditional airline that takes you directly to Europe and back, it is cheaper to buy a round trip ticket to San Francisco, and a low-cost flight from there.
The main downside is that if you have a problem getting to the departure city, you might miss your long-distance flight. Because you were getting there on a separate ticket, you may not get much help from either airline. You’ll also usually need to pick up any checked bags, when you arrive to the gateway city, and then re-check them with the other airline.

TravelStrategies:*Low Cost Carriers to Europe/Main