It's hard to put a price tag on the comfort of a lie-flat seat or some extra wiggle room during an overnight flight to Europe, but the airlines always do and it's usually pretty steep.
While using points and miles to book business class or premium cabin seats to Europe is typically where you'll find the best value, we've been seeing more and more cheap business class fares lately. Buying a business class flight for a low cash price saves you the headache of stacking up points and miles and then finding the award space to actually use them. Plus, with business class cash deals, you can use Google Flights – the most powerful flight search engine – to hone in on the very best flights at the very best times for the very best prices, too.
We search for business class flight deals every day and send our Thrifty Traveler Premium members alerts about the best ones as soon as you can book them. It's a labor of love because we love hearing our subscribers' reactions when we send them roundtrip deals like this memorable mistake fare from last year.
If you did a search for those same flights right now, you'd probably find the same fare…for economy!
This is what we're seeing all over the U.S. and Canada for premium cabin fares to Europe right now, though: Business class fares at economy prices.
If you've given up on flying business class because it's simply too expensive, think again. Read on for the best business class flight deals we've found in just the past few months.
Business Class Deals for Half-Off Summer Prices
United Airlines is part of the Star Alliance, a worldwide collection of airlines that work together to sell tickets on each other's airlines. And United's Star Alliance partners are some of our favorites in the sky. SWISS is one of those partners, and they are known for a pretty swanky business class product .
Swanky products come at swanky prices, though, but not always…
This flight deal flying SWISS and some other United partners included tons of business class seats starting at just $2,304 roundtrip . If that doesn't sound cheap to you, consider that many of these same flights can run you around $4,000 to $5,000 apiece.
And these low prices weren't just found departing from the usual suspects like New York City (JFK) and Washington, D.C. (IAD) either. Look at this list!
That nationwide business class deal included tons of availability into Geneva, Switzerland (GVA), but also added cities like Barcelona (BCN), Madrid (MAD), Munich (MUC), and Zurich (ZRH), too.
Possibly my favorite United partner is Turkish Airlines, which has a sweet business class of its own . Turkish seats are usually only affordable using points and miles, but a sweet spot opened up a few months ago for travel to Athens, Greece (ATH) from Washington, D.C. (IAD) in Turkish business class for just $2,489 .
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To put the $2,489 in perspective, that's about $3,000 less than these tickets usually cost. At that half-off price, you get one of the comfiest rides in the sky, along with all the bells and whistles of flying business class like lounge access, high-end dining onboard, and, of course, champagne.
Business Class from Canada from $1,600
Another sweet spot of cheap business class fares we keep finding is from our neighbors to the north in Canada, but if you're an American, don't stop reading this section!
Here's why: This month, a member of our Thrifty Traveler team booked this insane, sub-$2,000 business class flight deal on Condor Airlines from Toronto (YYZ) despite living here in the U.S. Why, you ask? Well, the positioning flight to take advantage of this low fare, combined with the low fare itself, was still about $2,000 cheaper than anything he could find from his home airport.
And, in the end, he got to fly Condor's ultra-stylish new business class product to Germany.
But the business class bonanza out of Canada didn't stop there. Air France and KLM also put a ton of its beautiful business class seats on sale this year to travelers starting in or flying from Canada.
And the fares were even lower! Starting at just $1,600, you could fly from all of these Canadian cities with Air France or KLM service to Amsterdam (AMS), Paris (CDG), or tons of other European cities in a lie-flat seat.
The lowest fare was this bonkers Ottawa (YOW) to Florence, Italy (FLR) business class ticket that would run you just $1,600 roundtrip , in the middle of July no less!
Booking a flight deal to or from Canada might be the savviest move you can make. If you're OK clearing immigration an extra time each way, it could save you thousands on a lie-flat seat to Europe.
JetBlue Mint Business Class from $1,894 Roundtrip
When it comes to business class flights to Europe, we check JetBlue every single day. Five years ago, that might have seemed crazy. But not only does JetBlue fly to Europe now, but they also fly these lovely Mint lie-flat business class suites with them on every route.
The latest addition to JetBlue's route network is Amsterdam (AMS) , and the day those flights went on sale, the Mint seats were only $1,898 roundtrip .
JetBlue's first foray across the Atlantic was to London (LHR and LGW), and we still see cheap Mint seats pop up every few months or so. This latest example was from just a few weeks ago.
JetBlue also started nonstop service to Paris (CDG) on Airbus A321LR planes with Mint seats onboard, too. And wouldn't you know it…
We might sound like a broken record about these JetBlue Mint fares, but JetBlue is really changing the business class pricing game with these seats. These price points are pretty unbelievable given how nice the product is, and these luxurious seats can get you to some of Europe's finest destinations, too.
Premium Economy Under $1,000 (& Sometimes Way Under!)
It's not quite business class, but it's way better than economy. Meet premium economy, a middle-ground between the luxurious lie-flat seats up in the front of the plane and the tightly packed economy rows in the back.
Premium economy is a really comfy way to fly and often comes at a price point travelers find more palatable. We love finding and sending out premium economy flight deals for exactly that reason.
And one of our favorite premium economy products is Delta Premium Select .
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This Delta Premium Select deal was a memorable one for a few reasons. For one, the fares on this were astonishingly low, featuring tons of fares from all over the U.S. in the $600s, and even some in the $500s. It's also memorable because I booked this exact deal to fly with my wife to Copenhagen (CPH) for Valentine's Day earlier this year. For just $670 per person roundtrip , it was worth every penny.
But Delta doesn't have a monopoly on premium economy. American Airlines partner Finnair also has a brand new premium economy offering that they put on sale recently from Chicago-O'Hare (ORD).
As is usually the case with premium economy, these seats come with free checked bags, ticket flexibility, and onboard perks like extra legroom, wider seats, bigger seatback screens, and even a business class-like amenity kit. With a connection in Helsinki (HEL), this Finnair deal could take you all over Scandinavia and northern Europe.
Speaking of Scandinavia, Scandinavian Airlines, or SAS, also offers a great premium economy product, and if you didn't double-check your Google Flights filters, you might think it's a regular economy seat at these prices!
We had a chance to fly what they call SAS PLUS recently and found the experience extremely comfortable for the price. The fares include bigger seats and seatback screens like most premium economies, but it also includes lounge access, which is atypical of most premium economy offerings.
Basically, when it comes to premium economy to Europe, anything under $1,000 roundtrip is a fantastic deal . In most of these cases, these fares can be at least $2,500 or more.
Here's a weird one that I think you're going to like: Singapore Airlines…to Germany?
That's right! Singapore Airlines runs what is called a Fifth Freedom route (meaning it's a flight that doesn't originate or land in the airline's home country) from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA). It also runs an even more bizarre route from Houston (IAH) to Manchester, U.K. (MAN), too.
The best part about these routes is that Singapore's luxurious premium economy seats are sold at a huge discount on almost every flight.
Bottom Line
Don't write off a chance at flying business class or premium economy to Europe this year or next, because right now we're seeing some of the lowest premium cabin cash fares we've ever seen across the Atlantic.
You don't have to have a huge stash of points and miles to book these incredible seats. We search for business class and premium economy flight deals every day, and Thrifty Traveler Premium members get alerts sent to their email inboxes as soon as we find them.
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