• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

s u b s c r i b e

• Elliott's E-Mail, a free weekly newsletter, is your insider resource for moneysaving ideas.

First name

Last name

E-mail address

Subscribe
Cancel

• Like what you see? Now you can become an underwriter.

a l s o

• Ticked e-mail
• Visit Tripso
• Referring sites
• Home

s e a r c h

• Find a story.



(c) Elliott Publishing.

Europe By Air
Cheap Charlie · October 13, 1999

I fondly remember the old days of Eurailpass when it was the best and cheapest way to scoot around Europe. I spend a couple of summers riding the rails from southern Italy to Oslo and from Vienna to Paris. Every trip was an adventure and I saved a bundle of money.

Then as Eurailpass prices steadily climbed, I began renting cars whenever I traveled with a friend in Europe. I found that an automobile rental arranged in the U.S. before arriving in Europe was almost always less expensive when split two ways than two Eurailpasses. Plus, I had a lot more freedom.

The only drawback was that with my Eurailpass I could often sleep across large portions of Europe, and with a rental car, I couldn't save money by sleeping on trains. Heck, I was growing up, but I was still cheap.

Recently, I learned about a new airpass that offers many of the same benefits of my old tried and true Eurailpass, but the move from Paris to Barcelona only takes a few hours or air travel rather than all day or overnight on a train. Best of all each flight between cities in Europe only costs $99.

The Europebyair Pass links more than 130 business and leisure destinations in Europe with a group of 17 European airline partners. Destinations include London, Berlin, Lisbon, Geneva, Shannon, Hamburg, Moscow, Munich, Copenhagen, Dublin, Nice, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Turin, Latvia, Estonia, Athens, Zagreb, Bordeaux, Lyon and Basel among others. You get the idea.

There are flights to just about every corner of Europe. The airlines involved are many of the smaller national and private airlines on the continent. The partners include Virgin Express from London, VLM from London City Airport, Portugalia from Lisbon, Spanair from Madrid, Air Liberté, Italy's Air One, Alpi Eagles, Augsburg Airways, CityJet, Croatian, Debonair Airways, Estonia Airlines, Icelandair, LTU and TransTravel.

You don't have to fly a certain airline to Europe. You aren't limited to the number of coupons you can buy. The only restrictions are that you must purchase a minimum of three segments and the passes are only valid for a period of 120 days.

I'll have more about Europebyair.com in a future column with suggestions about how an intrepid traveler can use these passes to get the most out of European vacation. I will also cover some of the other air passes available on the market these days.

In the meantime keep saving money and if you have a gripe with an airline, let them know in writing.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at cheapch@aol.com or access his Web site.