The Best Flights Deals for the Most-Searched Summer 2024 Destinations
8 min readWhen it comes to cheap travel, everything we do starts with Google Flights – the world’s biggest and best airfare search engine.
Because Google Flights gives travelers the most comprehensive look at airfare worldwide, it also harbors a vast treasure trove of data that lends important insights to flyers, too. Google recently released some of that data, revealing the most-searched destinations for summer 2024.
Google crunched the numbers based on three months of searches for flights this summer and put together a list of the top 20 destinations U.S. travelers are looking to visit. Some usual suspects like London and Paris top the list, but there were a few surprising destinations like Seattle cracking the top 10, too.
- London
- Paris
- Tokyo
- Rome
- New York
- Cancun
- Orlando
- Las Vegas
- Seattle
- Athens
After an unprecedented summer of travel to Europe in 2023, this summer looks to be much of the same. But travel demand to Japan hasn’t ebbed at all either, with Tokyo jumping from No. 8 on the list last year up to No. 3. And of course, U.S. cities like New York City, Orlando, and Las Vegas, are popular year-in, year-out. The same goes for Cancún and the whole Yucatán Peninsula down in Mexico, which continues to grow in popularity.
There’s heavy travel demand for all these destinations this summer. And with high demand typically comes high flight prices.
But there’s something else all of these 10 cities have in common: We’ve found Thrifty Traveler Premium summer flight deals for all 10 of them!
1. London
London typically tops this list as U.S. travelers seemingly always want to hop across the pond to the U.K. in the summertime. And while it might cost you $1,000 or more roundtrip to fly there in economy, over the past few months we’ve found ways for travelers to use their points and miles to fly there for way, way less…including in the front of the plane!
Get business class award deals like this in your inbox with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
This Virgin Atlantic flight deal allowed you to use your Virgin points or Flying Blue miles (transferable from almost every bank) to book these sleek suites for your ride across the Atlantic.
But American Airlines wasn’t about to let Virgin flyers have all the fun. The Dallas-based airline released a bunch of award availability – flights you can actually book with points and miles – for its own business class seats flying to London (LHR), too!
All of those nonstop routes were bookable using American or Alaska Airlines miles this summer. These fares are an outsized value for flying in comfortable, lie-flat business class when compared to economy prices flying across the pond right now.
And finally, United Airlines also put out its own business class flight deal to London this spring, offering nonstops from Chicago (ORD), Newark (EWR), and Washington, D.C. (IAD) to Heathrow for reasonable rates when booked with United partner Air Canada.
You can transfer points to Air Canada from Chase, Amex, Capital One, and Bilt Rewards.
2. Paris
If London is a staple at number one, Paris has always been the same at number two, but I’m surprised Paris didn’t jump ahead of London this year.
That’s because the Paris Olympic Games are coming to the banks of the Seine this summer, making Paris the most coveted travel destination on the planet for a month in July and August.
So that must mean that travel demand is through the roof, right?
These low fares are gone – join Thrifty Traveler Premium to get the next flight deal sent straight to your inbox!
You wouldn’t be wrong to think that, but we keep finding flight deals to Paris this summer anyway. This deal included mid-to-late August fares from all of these cities. The price you see is the August rate!
Especially this close to summer, we were not expecting to see Paris fares drop. It was a rare, short-lived opportunity to get to France during the peak travel season.
Since we started searching for summer 2024 airfare late last summer, we’ve noticed a luxurious trend: Business class availability to Paris (CDG) this summer has been shockingly easy to find.
Over the past few months, we’ve found tons of availability that has all since dried up. But when it was bookable, you could fly lie-flat on Air France from all of these cities for just 50,000 Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles each way. You could even do a little bit better when booking with Virgin (fares listed in the right column) on some routes, too!
Read more: Want to Fly to Europe This Summer? Think Business Class, Not Economy
3. Tokyo
Since the end of the pandemic, no destination has been more popular for travelers than Tokyo, Japan. We hear from our members all the time about how badly they want to visit Tokyo.
Just last week, we gave them a reason to celebrate, rounding up all of the Delta flights to Tokyo bookable with FlyingBlue miles, including some availability this summer!
Roundtrip flights for 70,000-90,000 points might not seem like the biggest bargain, but think about it this way. Summer fares to Japan are creeping closer to $1,800 or $2,000 roundtrip for economy right now, making this a massive savings.
We’ve also found business and first class flight deals to Japan, but very rarely have we found some that included summer availability. This deal from a few months ago changed that, offering a chance to use just 73,000 Virgin Atlantic points to book these $13,000 ANA First Class Suites!
This was a deal to remember that Thrifty Traveler’s co-founders actually booked for a trip last year, too!
4. Rome
Italy in the summer is on many a traveler’s wish list, and Google has the search data to prove it. Unfortunately, flying economy to Italy can get expensive in the peak summer months.
But if you fly up front, you can book flights from just 55,000 miles each way in American Airlines business class.
With AA miles pricing on the left and Alaska miles pricing on the left, all those nonstops to Rome hit our subscribers’ inboxes just minutes after we found them a few weeks ago. These are all summer flights, too!
While you have to aim for the last week of August or early September to take advantage of them, we also found some incredible value flying in economy to Italy recently, too.
Not all of these fares are straight into Rome (FCO), but these Italy flights could get you to other places like Naples (NAP), Milan (MXP), and Venice (VCE) among other destinations.
5. New York City
New York City is a major draw for American travelers any time of year, but summertime travel to the Big Apple hits a fever pitch.
The good news for all those travelers: Every airline flies to NYC, meaning there’s more than enough capacity flying to all three New York-area airports – Newark (EWR), LaGuardia (LGA), and Kennedy (JFK) – to keep prices cheap.
NYC has an impressive list of nonstop flight options, as you can see from this Premium deal we sent our members a few days ago.
New York City trips are easy and cheap (at least to fly there!) for summer 2024.
6. Cancún
While many travelers want to fly south during the coldest months of winter and spring, Cancún (CUN) is still a popular travel spot in the summer, too.
Flight deals to Cancún are abundant for the same reasons New York ones are: Every airline flies there frequently.
That typically leads to flight prices under $400 from dozens, if not hundreds, of U.S. airports during the summer months. Travelers fly to Cancún for the all-inclusive resorts, the Mayan ruins, the beaches, and to visit towns like Tulúm.
But there’s a new best way to get to Tulúm, and that’s to avoid Cancún altogether and fly straight to the city’s brand new airport!
And fares to the brand new Tulúm Airport (TQO) are still cheap, too.
7. Orlando
When you plan a visit to Orlando, chances are you’re bringing the whole family. The world-famous theme parks of Orlando draw travelers of all ages…especially those too young to buy their own airfare.
Luckily, with airfare this cheap, you won’t have to sell an organ to afford a trip to central Florida this year!
These nonstop flights to Orlando (MCO) are a perfect way to kickstart the trip of a lifetime.
8. Las Vegas
Only a town like Vegas could bring people to the desert in the summer.
The LED-powered circus that is the city of Las Vegas has an undeniable allure for most U.S. travelers, but the thousands of seats flying to and from the strip every day keep costs low.
Need proof? Just look at this list of cheap fares to LAS for summertime travel that we found just a few weeks ago. Whether you want a $190 nonstop, roundtrip flight from Boise (BOI) or a quick itinerary from Richmond, Virginia (RIC) for just $235, there’s a flight to Vegas for almost any American.
9. Seattle
Seattle has been rising in this search interest ranking for years now, cracking the top 10 in 2024.
Surrounded on one side by the sea and on three other sides by some of the country’s finest national parks, it’s no wonder why the Pacific Northwest hub is such a magnet for summer travel.
And with both Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines running extensive hub operations out of Seattle (SEA), it’s also no wonder why flights there remain cheap through the middle of summer.
10. Athens
Athens, Greece (ATH) is one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, and frankly, I’m surprised it’s not higher in the top 10.
Nonetheless, Athens made the list again this year, even though peak summer cash fares are harder to find. But your points and miles can still get you to Athens this summer. We just found this flight deal using FlyingBlue miles to get to Athens (and tons of other European destinations) a few days ago!
But Greece might best be known as a luxurious, honeymoon-worthy destination. And for a trip like that, you’ll need a business class flight to get over there, don’t you think?
How does Emirates business class look to you? Think you could make do with that swanky seat for a few hours flying to Greece nonstop from New York? Lucky for you, you only need 108,000 Emirates Skywards miles (or Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, or Citi points) to snag these seats roundtrip!
There’s also Condor Airlines, which has a crazy comfortable business class, too.
These roundtrip business class fares include a quick stop in Frankfurt (FRA) but are some of the cheapest mid-summer fares to Greece (and Italy, too, by the way) that we’ve ever seen.
Bottom Line
Google’s top 10 most-searched summer travel destinations for Americans are the most in-demand travel hotspots on earth, but that doesn’t mean they have to be expensive.
In 2024, you can still fly to the most popular travel spots without breaking the bank. Sign up for Thrifty Traveler Premium to get all the best flight deal alerts for summer 2024.
