So there’s a major sporting event you want to attend overseas, but although you want to be there and you can get tickets, the cost of the flights may stop you going altogether - so what do you do? Well there may be an alternative to look at that worked for me. In my case it was trying to get to the UEFA cup final, to watch Middlesbrough play in Eindhoven against Sevilla. Cue wise cracks about you should have stayed at home! Anyway, the flights were extortionate to fly to the area directly, so we looked at trying to get over to Holland via Dublin. Ryanair had a cheap flight to Dublin from our local airport (Durham Tees Valley or Teesside as we like to know it as!), then it was just a case of waiting for our connection to Eindhoven, which was slightly more hassle but saved us a packet. We got the return flights for about £100 each in the end - the direct flights that still had availability on them were selling for three and four times that amount. It was also quite nice popping into Dublin for a couple of drinks in Temple Bar for a couple of hours - the locals thought we were slightly mad I think though when we told them why we were there!
Struggling to find cheap ways of getting to see high demand overseas sporting events?...
So if, for example, Manchester United got to the Champions League final in Rome this season, the way to find cheaper flights could be to find an airport that both Manchester and Rome have mutually in common (not in the UK). A quick glance on Ryanair’s website indicates the first mutual airport would be Barcelona Girona in Spain. So if the flights tied in nicely you could fly from Manchester to Barcelona and then from Barcelona to Rome. Search for this by selecting the ‘departing from’ option as Manchester first and note where they fly to from Manchester and then change it to Rome and note where they fly from Rome. Then look out for any routes they share and see which routes work out the easiest, both in terms of travel time and connection time. It needs to be outside the UK though to avoid the demand - Spanish people won’t be booking up to see the final if its between Manchester United and Chelsea again (Although this might be a bad example as of course Man U fans aren’t from Manchester are they?!!). However, if Barcelona got to the final then you would need to find an alternative airport. Sounds like simple stuff but you would be surprised at how many people that don’t look into this sort of thing.
By Ben Charlton.
Tags: cheap holidays, Sevilla, Seville, Sport Holidays
Wise words Ben might have to get you to sort out my flights for the cricket