Psst! Looking for cheap Paris
airfares?

Finding cheap Paris airfares is essentially a matter of knowing how, where and when to look.

Take a look at this special I spotted. These seasonal deals return year after year: €499 roundtrip airfare to Paris, no week-end restrictions, including 4 nights at the Pavillon Pereire Arc de Triomphe hotel (near the Champs Elysées), free breakfast daily and a Seine River cruise (by Air France Holidays). Amazing! If I were you, I would join our Paris Clubhouse so you could get an alert from me every time I receive these deals…

By the way, speaking of deals here's another one I've rounded up. If you need a shuttle transfer upon your arrival at the airport, you can arrange for one at Paris-Shuttle.com and save upto30%. It's worth taking a good look at and is part of good trip preparation.

Anyways, in these times of high fuel prices and expensive air travel, it’s easy to get freaked out by often outrageous airfares, but with a little planning and research, I have been pleasantly surprised to find relatively cheap Paris airfares consistently.

Using a recent October trip to Paris as an example, (I’m giving this date to frame the context and time of year - I realize that fares increase over time, but mechanisms remain similar), I looked at quite a few online options, starting approximately a month before my trip - but sooner is always better.

For preliminary searches, I kept my travel dates flexible by plus or minus 3 days and watched the effect on the quoted prices.

Among my initial results, Air Tahiti Nui, which has a regular L.A./Paris schedule on their Tahiti-France route, was about 40% less than the average $600-$700 roundtrip generally offered on advance purchases (that's around $400!). However, as can be expected, those seats sold out before I could say Aah!!

Swiss and Air Canada also had some very competitive deals in the $500 range; not bad for West Coast prices. These are usually East Coast fares. Overall, there was a plethora of really affordable deals. The problem was to find the right dates and availability combination. I gave myself a bit more research time and googled my way through anything that caught my eye.

Eventually, as time became of the essence, I had to make my move. The best performer that time was Hotwire.com. I kept coming back to the best deals they had listed, and time after time, the fares were good and so were the dates and seat availability. I even got to pick a window seat and reserve it through an aircraft seating-chart, all online.

I had never used Hotwire.com but my first experience with them proved very successful, so I’m happy to recommend them and I will use them again.

I received confirmation of my e-ticket and itinerary with all the necessary information immediately. The ticket I bought also allowed changes to my trip dates (for a fee), which was important in case I had a change of plans while in Paris.

I liked the flexibility. Discount tickets purchased through travel agencies usually made it a nightmare for me to change travel dates, usually forcing me to either travel as planned or buy another ticket. In that sense, a “normal” ticket at a low price was a real winner.

Although I have not personally used Orbitz, feel free to try them out as well, at Orbitz.com. This is another place where I have often spotted some very interesting deals.

Another great tool I discovered was through Yahoo! of all places. This is first and foremost a search engine, not an online store. So, it displayed a multitude of fares obtained through Yahoo!’s list of participating airlines and hotels. Then, it linked you to the company of your choice for purchases, bookings and all other dealings. Yahoo! is not involved in the actual transactions.

You can check out Yahoo! Farechase and do extensive comparison shopping at: farechase.yahoo.com (ps: Note that Yahoo! Farechase and cheapflights.com have merged)

Of course, kayak.com is as versatile as they come to do your comparison shopping.

I hope these tips show you what I do, and help you research your own cheap Paris airfares. I will be adding new outstanding tools as I come across them. If any of you have had a great experience finding cheap Paris airfares, please share the wealth. Click here to join the Clubhouse and also, receive hot alerts whenever cheap Paris airfares are announced. You can't beat that with a bat!!