How to Find Cheap World Cup Flights to South Africa from Europe

It might feel like there is loads of time between now and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but before you know it the calendar will be halfway through May and you’ll be sorting out what face-paint to bring with you on your trip. So if you have not yet booked your airline tickets to South Africa, there’s no time to lose!

The fact is that with any big event – whether it’s a sports event like the World Cup or a major holiday – the cost of things like airfare and accommodation will be higher than normal. With the World Cup, the price increases are even more dramatic, however, as this is an event that only comes along once every four years – and since it’s routinely billed as the most-attended sporting event in the world, the airlines know that people will be travelling for it. So even if you’re not typically a plan-ahead type, this is definitely the time to break that mould.

Keep in mind that the tips listed in the article below will help you save money on plane tickets for just about any trip you take – regardless of where or when you’re going – but they’re particularly useful when you’re planning a trip at a busy time or to a popular destination.

And before we get to the tips, if you’re looking for up-to-date information on the tournament and live blogs of the games themselves, look no further than the World Cup Blog, with a blog for every team in the World Cup.

Be Flexible

As with any list of tips to find cheap fares, the top tip in this case is to be as flexible as possible with your travel plans. It’s always a top tip because it works! Sometimes it can be challenging to be flexible, if you’re travelling for a particular one-day event or holiday, but with a multi-week event like the World Cup you have some room to work with.

The primary idea behind the “be flexible” bit of advice is that you don’t restrict yourself to only one day or time of day when you can fly. Many online booking sites now make being flexible as easy as checking a box near where you’re putting in your itinerary information (it should say something like “my dates are flexible”), which just goes to show how important this can be in finding a lower price.

If the booking site you’re using doesn’t provide a “flexible dates” option, you can still check several dates and times for lower fares – you’ll just have to do it manually. This means picking a few dates around your target date (on both the departure and the return) as well as a few different times of the day to see if you can find the “sweet spot” of a good itinerary and a cheaper fare.

Travel When Flights Are Cheapest

This may seem like an obvious statement, and a goal rather than a method of getting there. But it’s actually a piece of advice that ties into the one above. Specifically, it pertains to knowing when the cheapest days and times of the day are to fly, so that you can be a bit more targeted in your searches.

Generally speaking, the cheapest day of the week to fly is Wednesday. That’s followed by Tuesday and Saturday. So those three days are the first you should check when you begin your hunt for cheap airfare.

As for the times of the day that are cheapest, it probably won’t come as a surprise to you to learn that the flights that leave earliest in the morning are the ones with the lowest fares. Red-eye flights (overnight flights) can also be cheap, so if your search for early-morning departures isn’t yielding the low prices you’d like, check the last departure of the day as well.

Look at All Your Airport Options

This tip usually refers to checking out all the airports at or near your destination to see if one of them is particularly popular with budget carriers or is actually closer to where you’re ultimately going. But in the case of travelling to the World Cup in South Africa from Europe, it could just as easily refer to all the departure airport options in Europe, too.

Obviously, most people will have a home airport that’s closest to them and easiest to use. But it’s always a good idea to look at flights to your destination from other airports in your area in case they’ve got a particularly good deal going on that you wouldn’t have otherwise been aware of.

In terms of your destination, although most international visitors to South Africa arrive via the country’s biggest airport in Johannesburg, there are other international airports in South Africa you could choose to fly into if you were attending games in a city other than Jo’burg – or if you found a better deal into a different airport. And you won’t know unless you look, will you?

Do the Calculations on Package Holidays

You can’t get very far online these days looking for travel deals to the World Cup without finding what look like excellent offers on package holidays to South Africa just for the tournament. But unless you’re willing to sharpen a pencil and do some figuring (or, in the 21st century, fire up your computer’s calculator!), you can’t be sure those packages really offer the best deal.

It’s hard to deny the convenience factor with package tours, but if you take the time to break down the packages into their individual components you may find that you can get a better deal on an airline ticket if you book separately, or find a cheaper hotel or apartment rental than the one included in the package, etc. You may end up opting for the package, but don’t do that without knowing what you’re paying for first.

photo by Shine 2010

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