Set up deal alerts that you can actually judge
Every alert service asks for your home airport and then sends what it calls a deal. This tells you first what a deal is from your airport, city by city, from 1,037 fares we priced ourselves, then gives you the settings.
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Not listed? We price 26 gateway metros. Pick the one you would drive to; the plan then tells you whether a second airport belongs in the alert.
Pick your airport and the plan appears here: what counts as a deal from there, who sells it, and how to set the alert.
Why the alert is only half the tool
A deal alert is a stranger's opinion about a fare. It is usually a fair opinion, but it is formed against a national picture, and fares to Europe are not national: the same $422 that is an ordinary week to Reykjavik from New York would be one of the cheapest fares ever seen from Salt Lake City. The reader's half of the job is knowing their own line, and almost nobody does, because working it out means pricing forty cities from your airport on the same day. We did that, for 26 airports, and this page hands you the result.
What it checks, and in what order
Your airport in the grid. Its median cheapest fare to Europe, where that ranks among the 26 US gateways, and how many European airlines sell it. That last number is the site's central finding: across every gateway we price, the count of European carriers predicts an airport's fares better than its size, its distance from Europe or its traffic. Every gateway with 9 or more ranks in the ten cheapest. Salt Lake City has none, the only gateway where that is true.
Your alert lines. For the city you named, or every city we priced from your airport if you left it open, the cheapest week we observed and three lines around it: ordinary up to 10% above the floor, act at 5% below it, grab at 15% below it. They are the Fare Deal Checker’s own bands, so the two tools cannot disagree about a fare; a test fails the build if they drift. The cheapest US airport for each city is shown alongside, with the gap to yours, and flagged where it clears $200. Tick the business-class box and a second table gives the same lines for the cheapest business fare from your airport in the carrier grid, with the carrier that sold it and how many times the economy floor it costs.
Airports to add. A second home airport is worth adding when it sits within about 300 miles and is at least $100 cheaper on median, the same thresholds the Alternate Airport Checker uses for a single trip. For 4 of the 26 gateways, one qualifies. Where the cheapest gateway in the grid is $200 or more below yours, a positioning flight is named as an option for planned trips, not for reacting to an alert.
The settings. Home airports, region, tier, and the rule for reading an alert when it lands. The hand-off is to Going, on an affiliate link attributed to this page. The free tier is the first ask on every plan this page produces, and it is the right tier for most readers.
Green airlines
The carrier chips mark in green any airline whose median premium across the whole carrier grid is $25 or less: the carriers that are cheapest or nearly cheapest wherever they sell. Whether one of them sells your airport is the single variable that best explains its fares, and it is a commercial decision no reasoning about hub size predicts. Minneapolis and Detroit are two northern fortress hubs of the same airline; one has Icelandair and one does not, and across the 4 Nordic capitals both price, Detroit pays $203 to $298 more.
What it cannot tell you
Both grids are snapshots, the city grid collected in one sitting and the carrier grid priced for one fixed travel week, so nothing here is a bookable price and no line is a forecast. A fare that beats your grab line is a fare that beat the cheapest week we could find in six months from your airport; it says nothing about whether a cheaper one is coming. We have not priced summer, and the second monthly snapshot at the end of September is the first that can say how these floors move. The written version of the argument is Flexibility by Airport, and both grids are on the open data page.
Common questions
- How do I set up flight deal alerts to Europe?
- Give the alert service your home airport, set the region to Europe rather than one city, and start on the free tier, which covers economy deals. The part every service skips is the reader's side: knowing what a deal is from your airport. The wizard prints that line for each city from the fare we observed, so when an alert arrives you can judge it in a second instead of searching.
- What price should I set a flight alert for to Europe?
- There is no single number, because the same fare is a find from one airport and ordinary from another. From New York the cheapest week we saw to Reykjavik was $422, so anything at or below $400 is worth acting on and $358 or less is worth grabbing; from Salt Lake City the cheapest city in the grid was Stockholm at $694. The wizard computes both lines for your airport, 5% and 15% under the floor we observed.
- Should I add more than one home airport to my alerts?
- Only when a gateway within about 300 miles is cheaper on median by $100 or more, which is true for 4 of the 26 gateways we price. Philadelphia is the clearest case: New York is about 90 miles away and $164 cheaper on median. Where no nearby airport clears that bar, adding one just adds noise.
- Are the fares in the wizard live prices?
- No. Every figure is from our grid: 1,037 round trips priced on August 30, 2026, the cheapest one-week economy trip in the following six months for every city and gateway pair. That makes each fare a floor across a window, not a price anyone can book today, and it is exactly what an alert should be judged against. The grid refreshes monthly and the wizard recomputes from it.
- Is Going Premium worth it, or is the free tier enough?
- Start free; economy deals are on the free tier, and for most readers it is the right tier. Premium adds mistake fares and delivers every deal first, which matters if you would book within a day of a fare below your grab line. If you would not, the free tier is the right tier. Elite is only for readers who are also watching business class, and if you tick that box the wizard adds business-class lines from the carrier grid so you can judge those alerts too.
Written by
Jon Miksis
Jon Miksis has run travel businesses since 2017 and spends 3–6 months a year traveling, two to three of them in Europe. He has taken 250+ flights and booked every one himself, and regularly flies Boston to Europe for under $300 round trip. Every “Flown” review is from his own seat.
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