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Hah! I have to laugh when
I think that the airline industry is
very much like Istanbul's Grand
Bazaar: How much does it
cost to fly to Turkey?
Well,
how much are you willing to pay?
Honestly, there may be several
dozen different fares for
the same flight. Unfortunately, no
one agency or
website always gives the lowest fare. You've
got to shop around.
The suggestions below are for flights
to Turkey. For domestic flights
within Turkey, you can save
a huge amount of money by
making your reservations through
one of my recommended
Turkish travel agencies. More...
Generally speaking, airfares to Turkey
are lowest in December and January and
highest in June and July; May,
August and September are
a bit lower,
March and November lower
still.
BOOKMARK THIS PAGE so
you can come back and use the links
for later shopping. In fact, the websites
listed below are good to check
for any airfare, whether to
Turkey or elsewhere.
Airfare Search Engines
Momondo.com is perhaps the top airfare
search engine these days, with a wide
reach (includes some railroads) and
easy-to-use interface. More...
AIRFARE.com 
A leading seller of "consolidator" (ie,
discounted) airfares on major airlines ("14 million
unpublished fares!"), they also sell regular published
fares. Good, easy-to-use website. For many years I've
found they have the lowest fares, and I
often buy my USA-to-Turkey tickets from them. More...
Airfare Search Engines
An airfare Meta-Search Engine is a
search engine (like Google) that searches
other search engines. The links below
will take you to airfare meta-search
engines roughly in my order of preference.
Look for fares on a few of them before
buying.
(Note: most of these search
engines will search one another, so
you needn't go to them all, but do
try more than one.)
Momondo
Fast, clear and the results include
over 4000 high-speed trains! More...
Skyscanner
New and easy to use.
More...
Mobissimo
Also simple, fast and clear. More...
Vayama
Very good, though you must put up with
many ads and some pop-ups. More...
Kayak
Results
are presented in a clear, useful
format, with all taxes and
fees included, but fares are now often
more expensive on Kayak than on other
airfare meta-search engines. More...
BookingBuddy.com
Searches many of the major travel-booking
sites in an elaborate way. Good results,
but sorta complicated and not the easiest
to use. More...
A leading US consumer products testing
organization found that
, an airline reservation service operated
by a consortium of nine airlines, gave
the lowest fares more frequently than
any other major reservations service.
(But...you must be a UK resident to
buy.) Use the box at the top of the
right-hand column to try it. —> More...
From Europe
Besides the Turkish
airlines of AtlasJet,
Pegasus Airlines, Onur
Air, and Sun
Express, several smaller low-cost
European airlines operate
cheap flights to Turkey.
WeGoLo.com is a meta-search engine
that finds airfares on lower-priced
airlines. More...
Many lower-priced flights go to Istanbul's Sabiha
Gökçen Airport (SAW)
on the Asian shore of
the Bosphorus,
not to Istanbul's
main Atatürk
International Airport, 23 km
west of the city center on the
European side of the Bosphorus.
Sabiha
Gökçen Airport is
much farther from the center of historic
Istanbul, and not as convenient
for ground transport as Atatürk
Airport, but the airfares are
certainly lower. Here's
how to travel to and from Sabiha
Gökçen Airport. (By the way, Backpackers
Travel in Istanbul operates
a great value-for-money private
transfer service from
both airports [Atatürk and Sabiha
Gökçen] that's
far superior to a taxi,
and not much more expensive. More...)
Corendon
Based in the Netherlands,
Corendon flies from Eindhoven and Brussels
to Istanbul (SAW).
easyJet
easyJet now flies from the UK to Turkey.
Germanwings
This German carrier operates flights
from Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne-Bonn
and Stuttgart to Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.
Pegasus
Airlines
This Turkish airline flies
from many cities in Germany and Holland
to Turkey, between Athens and Izmir,
and within Turkey to many cities. More...
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