Egypt is a very affordable travel destination for U.S. Americans, but the flight often is the largest chunk of the trip costs.

Over the years we learned some tricks to getting the best deals on flights to Egypt from the United States. This blog post will go over how we got flight prices as low as $648 roundtrip from Minneapolis to Cairo. These prices can be even lower in other cities!

We will go over:

A breakdown of flights from the U.S. to Egypt and good cities to travel from
Using Google Flights to find the best flights
Going to the airline website to book directly (and often finding a better deal)

U.S. to Egypt flights breakdown

The U.S. is not a convenient destination to travel to Egypt from; the only cities where travelers can get nonstop flights to Cairo are New York (JFK), and Washington, D.C. (IAD). These nonstop flights are only offered by EgyptAir, a decent airline, but not nearly as comfortable and reliable as other carriers. And for those (like us) who prefer to fly SkyTeam, flying EgyptAir and getting miles on the Star Alliance system does not have an appeal. Still, it is good to know that these EgyptAir nonstop flights do exist, and if one wants the most direct route to get to Egypt, first traveling to JFK or IAD and then getting on an EgyptAir flight to Cairo is the way to go. These flights are usually not the most affordable options, though.

*Flight options from JFK showing the nonstop option on EgyptAir (at the bottom). Notice that this option is significantly more expensive, though.*

Most flights to Cairo have at least one layover in Europe, often in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Paris, or Rome. Other flights have layovers in other destinations in the Middle East, like Istanbul, Amman, Doha, or Dubai. Many flights from smaller cities in the U.S. will also stop at a domestic airport first, like JFK, ATL, ORD, or DTW. Layovers can be quick, lasting only about an hour, or they can be long, lasting 6 hours or more, sometimes lasting overnight. The good part about itineraries is that there are usually several options to choose from, so travelers can decide which city they would like to stop in and how long they would like their stop to be. The opportunity to leave the airport and explore a city like Paris or Amsterdam during a longer layover makes some stops actually a fun break instead of a boring wait at an airport.

Layovers can be boring, but if they are long enough, a trip into the city can be fun! On this layover in Paris I had the chance to visit the Sacre Coeur and then enjoy a cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe before getting on the flight to Cairo.

Over the years we have gotten flights leaving from different cities in the United States in order to take advantage of cheaper prices. Chicago and New York often have the cheapest prices, sometimes hundreds of dollars cheaper than other cities, so buying a roundtrip ticket from a home city to Chicago and New York and then buying a separate roundtrip ticket from that city to Cairo is a smart way to save some money, although there is a risk involved. Taking two separate itineraries means that if one trip gets delayed, the other itinerary may be affected, without having the understanding of an airline switching travelers onto other flights free of charge (like they would do if traveling on one itinerary).

A note on west-coast flights: Los Angeles has some great flight itinerary options to Cairo since many of them go directly overseas without needing to stop at a domestic point first. For travelers originating their travel in a west-coast city, it may pay off to get to LAX first and then take a more direct flight from LAX to CAI.

Using Google Flights to find the best flights

When it comes time to book a flight, we always go first to Google Flights, Google’s flight tool. This tool does not let you purchase flights through it, like Expedia or Orbitz, but it gives tons of options for flights that many websites do not display, and it also has great tools to allow travelers to easily see price options for a variety of dates, and to see historic price data to gauge how prices change over time and to decide if a current price is worth making the purchase.

Check out some images to see how we used Google Flights to find different options for our latest trip to Cairo:

*Google Flights has a convenient calendar view that gives the cheapest possible prices for any day in a month or more-long span.*

*Once we chose the cheapest option that best matched the dates we wanted, different flight choices came up.*

*Google’s price analytics show that the prices shown were a good deal, so that means it’s time to buy!*

We ended up picking the Delta itinerary since that is the airline we prefer and have the most status on. Google now shows all the information we need to make this booking directly on the airline’s website.

Booking directly through your airline

Since Google does not allow purchasing, travelers will need to purchase flights from another platform, and this is where we recommend going directly to the airline’s website for the best flight options from Google Flights. We recommend this for a few reasons:

Booking directly through the airline will often give the best price
Booking directly makes it easier to earn miles/status
Airlines often have better cancellation policies than booking through third party websites

Check out these images to see what we found when looking up our Delta flight. Spoiler alert--we saved almost $100 off of the already cheap price found on Google Flights!