Alas, it seems the good old days of the $99 each way airfares from BA and Aer Lingus, etc... are long gone. I will be planning a honeymoon later this fall (travel in December, most likely) and wondered whether anyone might have tips on airfares.

Generally, I'd fly out of Chicago to save a few bucks, but Indy or St. Louis are really more convenient. It seems Indy is now pretty competitive, price-wise, to Chicago fares. Either way, it looks like I'm going to have to go through Minneapolis or Detroit.

Ultimately, we'd like to end up in the Alps. Munich, Austria, Geneva, etc... are candidates, but Brussells (or around there) would work, too, as I'd like to see my old house there. We'll rent a car, so driving isn't an issue.

It seems that flying to London and then on to Europe on another carrier might be the way to go to save on fares... have any of you found this to be the case?

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

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1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

Both BA and AA typically run fall/winter promos between ORD and LHR. You can usually score around $350/person easily, sometimes less. Once at LHR, you can fly pretty much anywhere in western Europe for $100 or less. Check out Ryanair or Easyjet.

If you want Alps, I typically see AA start advertising ORD to ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland) towards late summer, well under $400/person. Zurich is a great little city, very clean and picturesque (and safe) and connects by rail to other cool places like Paris or Venice.

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08 W251 R350
97 W210 E320
91 W124 300E
86 W126 560SEL
85 W126 380SE Silver
85 W126 380SE Cranberry
79 W123 250
78 W123 280E
75 W114 280

Mobisimo.com finds pretty good international rates. If you are flying to England it is always cheaper to fly into Gatwick than Heathrow if you can get around. I second the easyjet suggestion--cheaper than eurorail currently I would guess, and you don't burn the time.

Thanks, gmercoleza. That's exactly the kind of info I have been looking for! I have only ever flown trans-continental in the springtime, now that I think about it. From what I gather, spring and summer travel are the ones that require early-booking for the deals. Rick Steves' site, for instance, suggests that for travel in winter, booking a month or a little more in advance isn't a bad idea necessarily. My concern is fuel prices... it seems they're only going to go up between now and winter, so prices probably won't come down TOO much.

That said, we have to wait and see what our travel dates will be. We'd love to go in October or November, but if my fiance gets a teaching job for the fall, all bets are off... and we'll be heading that way over Christmastime. Time will tell!

Thanks again!

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

Good site... hadn't heard of that one. Thanks! I should specify... if it's not much more expensive to fly direct to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, or Belgium, we'd just do that. I had just heard that flying to London was significantly cheaper than to Europe.

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

You can try LTU also....their site has some good deals for certain seasons, and some sort of auction too. www.ltu.com

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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Interesting site (thanks!)... but the closest city they fly from seems to be Cincy. Darn!

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)