The Jack Benny Guide to Flying

Nothing much lifts the heart of the cheapskate traveler so much as rumors of cheap airfares. And the volatility surrounding the emergence of the Common Market is now beginning to crack the most expensive nut of all--travel by air within Europe.

The France Pass gives you seven days of travel within a month for a measly $279 on interior French air routes--mostly Air Inter, but also Air France to a lesser degree. I have traveled for Orly to Corsica several times on this pass, and except for the outrageous cab fares you get stuck with in Calvi and Bastia, it's a steal.

A bit of advice for pre-seniles like myself: If you're 62 or older, you qualify for half-fare, off-peak, on French railroads, when you buy a four-trip or annual pass at any rail station. Between Paris and Lyons, for example, it makes little sense to fly, once you add on time and costs getting to and from both airports.

But the France Pass was just a harbinger of things cheaper to come. Now there is the Euro Flyer Pass offered by Air France (including Air Inter), CSA (Czech) and Sabena (Belgian). On the latter two airlines, you must get to Europe by one of the three carriers--i.e., buy a ticket to Paris, Brussels or Prague. Air France allows you to get to Paris on any scheduled airline.

The pass then entitles you to buy a minimum of three $120 flight coupons--maximum of nine--to spin off to the other airports served by these airlines. You must choose one such destination before your trip begins; the others can be ad libbed as you're moved to move.

What interests me most at the moment is CSA, where I can fly, for example, from Prague to Bucharest, Riga, Sofia or Moscow. Air France beckons with Ankara, Salonika and St. Petersburg. Sabena could be your open sesame to Istanbul, Porto or Budapest. Warning: Look for the one-plane itinerary; transfers involve an extra $120 per change. (Of course, some of those destinations could still be saving, even with two tickets.)

Northwest and KLM have an analogous deal worth exploring, depending on your destinations. It involves a minimum of three $100 tickets and a maximum of whatever you like.

Start your dreaming the way I did: Call Sabena (800-955-2000) and ask for their scheduled booklet, so you can start winnowing out the through flights. Because Antwerp is the European City of Culture this year, they'll lay on your more than you want to know about Brussels and its peers--Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges. (But don't burn up one of your tickets going by air to Antwerp; take the train.)

You should also contact Rail Europe for the proliferating passes within European countries and regions like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russian, Spain, Portugal--in short, fly in, train around, and fly out--and among European blocs like Scandinavia and Benelux.

As an old Eurailer, I've given up the complete pass (15 days, a month, two months) as too conducive to cardiac arrest from over-traveling. Take the kind that gives you so many days of travel within a longer period--or, if you're traveling with some one else, the cheapest of all: two-fers.

And keep an eye on the piffle that comes with your frequent flier monthly statements. For more than a year I've been goosing my USAir Visa card to accumulate the 60,000 miles you need to get a round trip to Europe. Suddenly last month, the airline offered a fire sale on round trips via Lufthansa, KLM or Sabena for 30,000 frequent flier miles each--at the lowest of the low seasons, October through April.

I've already cashed in one for KLM, which will take me in late winter to Oslo, whence I'll Eurail around on a Scanrail pass to see how my metabolism works when the Celsius dips. My favorite fantasy is to drop in, from the vantage point of Helsinki, on the two Baltic capitals of Riga and Talinn.

I'm also going to cash in a Sabena, which could take me to Casablanca! Or maybe Barcelona. Maybe I'll finally get to look at Santiago de Compostela, which is celebrating a thousand years of pilgrimages this year. I can do that by flying into Lisbon and training up through Porto and Vigo.

Half the fun is fantasizing which godforsaken part of the world to flee to. Incidentally, USAir's part of the bargain is to deliver you to JFK, from which you begin your journey. So if I happen to be visiting granddaughter Sonia in St. Paul, or my buddy Jake in San Francisco--well, you're entitled to go and return from the U.S. port of choice.

If you have a lot of time on your hands (and even more patience), you should try AIRHITCH (2790 Broadway, Suite 100, New York 10025, 212-864-2000). What you do is send them a five-day window of opportunity and a check for $169 (more from Chicago, even more from San Francisco) with three preferred destinations.

Since I was going to Grenoble to pick up luggage, I checked Paris, Lyon and Geneva in that order. About two weeks before my preferred flight day, Airhitch called, offering me Milan on the Monday before. I declined, because that would have plopped me into France when the August vacation tidal wave was rolling in. I opted for one into Amsterdam the day after the tidal wave.

But that's only the beginning. I arrived in Newark International a few hours ahead of scheduled departure. Then I learned that you're boarded (if they board you, there's no iron-clad guarantee) in the order you've bought your hitch. Ha! It turned out I was the last one to buy, hence almost not to board.

No joke, because that awarded me the lousiest, most claustrophobic seat on their Martinair 767: center seat in the last aisle. Help. I sweet-talked a stewardess into letting me sit, after we were airborne, in one of the seats next to the emergency exits.

My next-door seatee was a Hasidic rabbi-to-be who was going to his sister's wedding in Amsterdam. He was a peripatetic young man, with school time in Japan and France. So he made the lovely new 767 (they have electronic maps showing you where the plane is, now high, how long--wow!) even nicer.

So be warned. Airhitch can have its hitches. It cost me almost $100 more to take the train from Amsterdam to Paris to Grenoble, not to forget ten more hours. I grew antsy about getting back and took Continental, for which I now have their Pass One frequent flyer ticking (slowly) towards an Asian trip.

You might also look into Republic Air, which appears to be a cover name for two charter companies trying to break in to the scheduled airline business. I could have flown JFK to Charles DeGaulle for $149 after June 18. That's cheaper than most bucket shops, but with less waggle on dates.

The two cheapest ways to get around, of course, are to take an around-the-world fare (my last one cost me less than $2,000 and took me to New Zealand, New Caledonia, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, New Delhi) or to become and air courier.

To get into the courier orbit, begin with Mark I. Field's The Courier Air Travel Handbook, Thunderbird Press, $7.95) and join the International Association of Air Travel Couriers (8 S. J Street, Box 1349, Lake Worth FL 33460, 407-582-8320), for which a $35 annual fee entitles you to bi-monthly bulletins, monthly courier newsletters plus postcard announcements of last-minute bargains.

Finally, tour packages like Grand Circle Travel, Saga Holidays and the AARP Travel Experience are more and more beginning to give you substantial kickbacks (up to $1,000) for arranging your own flights to overseas cruises or land tours. They also offer cut-rate add-on fares to their U.S. land packages.

But be canny. On a tour of the National Parks I'm taking in May, it would have cost me $450 by Grand Circle Travel to buy my air to Rapid City, S.D., and back from Denver. It's much cheaper to buy Senior Coupons. As it is, Northwest has kindly given me extra time to use my last two Senior Coupons which expired in April (you only get a year to use them). It never hurts to ask--nicely.

Flash: Conde Nast Traveler for May includes a most useful gloss on bargain fares for air, rail and rental car. It's especially good on the new airlines within Europe that are breaking the old monopoly national airline gouging. Outfits like TAT, Air UK. And the two best bonded bucket shops in London--Hamilton Travel and Holidaymaker.

Hazard at Large, Welcomat.