I have been planning a trip to Spain and Portugal and one of the hardest decisions to make was when to book my flight. Do I fly direct or book with a layover? When traveling internationally, flights that include layovers can bring down the cost of your trip and even add another destination to your journey.
There are a few ways you can book multi-city international trips and I used Kayak to find the best options. With the first option you can select "multi-city" and enter in your dates and locations and this will generate fares and options. For the second option, I selected a "round trip" ticket and decided to fly into and out of Barcelona. I was able to book a round trip ticket for $440! This was the cheaper option than doing a multi-city ticket. Once I booked my roundtrip flight, I selected dates for Lisbon and searched for tickets. The flight between Barcelona and Lisbon is less than 2 hours and for a roundtrip, I paid $97! Once in Europe, it is fairly inexpensive to fly, so take advantage.
Now, just how did I end up adding London and Milan to my itinerary? With Kayak's Hacker Fares. Kayak does the hard work for you and gives you the best options based on three categories: the cheapest, the best, and the quickest. I was in no rush, so went with the cheapest and found a roundtrip flight from New York's JFK airport to Barcelona for $440, with an 8 hour layover in London going to Barcelona and a 24 hour layover in Milan coming back to New York. Make sure that you check the flight rating, in the upper right hand corner, a cheap flight may not be the best flight especially with basic economy, which is incredibly restrictive.
The great thing about heading to Portugal and Spain in September is that the weather is still really nice and you can enjoy these countries without the massive summer crowds. Stay tuned for more about this upcoming trip, I will be sharing tips and photos on the best of the Iberian peninsula.