$1,823.00 Air France Fare - Do You Think I Can Do This a Cheaper Way

You might price some of your flights on one of the many budget airlines.
www.whichbudget.com
www.skyscanner.net

ditto ky

Even rough dates would help. Also, how many connections you are willing to make, etc.

In.... February? August?

LDE (Lourdes/Tarbes) is only served by Air France, and only from Orly Airport, so the low cost carrier sites probably won't help much.

Just fooling around, I plugged in some dates in May for the transatlantic legs, and came up with $771 for Air France JFK-EDI//NCE-JFK, using Air France's codeshare on Delta between JFK and Edinburgh.

Then if you use the Skyteam Europe Pass (http://www.skyteam.com/EN/benefits/airpass_noflash2/index.jsp) for EDI-CDG//ORY-LDE-ORY-NCE, the total for the 4 shorthaul flights comes to $390 [plus some tax) for a total of something around $1200. If you want to go back to Paris after Nice, you'd then need to add in the $90 for the NCE-Paris leg, and change the return to CDG-JFK rather than NCE-JFK, so it would probably end up costing a few dollars more all in.

But it's completely speculation without knowing your dates; the transatlantic fares are all over the place later in the year.

I'm wondering, if cost is an issue, whether you should look at rail travel between some of the French sites. I would think you could TGV/SNCF between these sites a lot cheaper than flying.

And, similarly, since London is a hub, flights to there might be cheaper. Fly into London ,train to Edinburgh (or spend couple days in London then cheap flight from Stansted?)

I would book one open jaw ticket NY - London/Paris - NY & use trains or smaller European airlines for the other legs.

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I will be traveling the first three weeks of June.

I want to fly non-stop JFK-Edinburgh and Paris-JFK. Other than thoses two flights, I am open. I looked into trains, but with the Lourdes-Nice being 8 hours, I though I would be better off flying.

Gardyloo:

"Just fooling around, I plugged in some dates in May for the transatlantic legs, and came up with $771 for Air France JFK-EDI//NCE-JFK, using Air France's codeshare on Delta between JFK and Edinburgh"

Can you please explain to me about using a codeshare?

Thank you.

I'm not sure if you got this fare using the Air France website, but I have found that any kind of open jaw adds up to more on that site than if I break it down and book the roundtrip US-Europe and then the intra-Europe flights separately.

Codeshare means that you use one airline's plane with another's flight number. In your case, Delta flies nonstop between JFK and Edinburgh, but can be bought using an Air France flight number, and priced according to Air France's tariff. When you travel, you just turn up at the Delta counter to check in.

The $770+/- transatlantic fare I cited goes up to $1140 +/- for travel in June instead of the May dates I used.

Fares per ITA.

If you insist on nonstop to Edinburgh, you are limiting your choices completely, as I think Air France is the only airline with that possibility. ON return, you might have two choices with that as your first leg -- AF/Delta and American. I don't think AF allows you to book United as a return with them as the first flight. I wanted to do that once and it wasn't allowed for reasons I don't understand, but apparently some airlines have deals like that. It probably wouldn't be any cheaper, anyway. SO I think AF/Delta is going to be your only choice for the outer parts, and will cost around $1100.

Definitely look into the Skyteam Europe Pass that Gardyloo recommended. Thanks to him, I saved a bundle on our intra-European air tix a few years ago.

Thanks for the responses.

Gardyloo: Thank you for the codeshare lesson. I went onto the Skyteam website, but I didn't find a good explanation of how the pass works and what the fares are. I tried to find a contact number, but all I found was 800#s for the various partner airlines. Have you used this pass before? Is there a customer service number at Skyteam?

Thanks again.

You need to take trains on some of the sectors!

Did you click on the link I provided (http://www.skyteam.com/EN/benefits/airpass_noflash2/index.jsp)?

Click on the "easy fare structure" box and it ought to bring up the fare box. (Note it's a pop-up; if you use a pop-up blocker it might need to be disabled temporarily in order for you to see the screen.)

Here's the table, which might not look too swift pasted into Fodors, but you get the idea -

Zone 1 : 150 Miles 60 USD

Zone 2 : 151 - 500 Miles 90 USD

Zone 3 : 501 - 1000 Miles 120 USD

Zone 4 : 1001 - 1500 Miles 170 USD

Zone 5 : 1501 - 2000 Miles 190 USD

Zone 6 : Over 2000 Miles 205 USD

Edinburgh-Paris is in Zone 3, all the others are in Zone 2.

Gardyloo: Thanks for the post. I called Air France and the roundtrip airfare plus the 6 Skyteam coupons comes to just over $2,000.00. Maybe the regular Air France fare of $1,800 is the best that I can do. Thanks again.

How do you get a skyteam Europe pass?

Jet2 flies Edinburgh to Toulouse, about 80 miles away.

Lourdes to Paris is a train ride (not sure which train).
Nice - Paris is a TGV ride, or it can be a cheap flight on EasyJet.

If you fly out of EWR, then you could easily take Continental to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and back from Paris. I'm not saying CO is best, just that there are ways to make it an option.

In short, I think there are cheaper, if not easier, ways to do this itinerary.

I meant:
Lourdes - Nice is a train ride.
You can check the train rides on voyages-sncf.com .

You can check the flights, as mentioned above, on whichbudget.com, and skyscanner.net.

I called Air France and the roundtrip airfare plus the 6 Skyteam coupons comes to just over $2,000.00. Maybe the regular Air France fare of $1,800 is the best that I can do. Thanks again.

The Air France website doesn't allow you to book "open jaw" flights - fly into one city, home from another, while Delta's website does.

I just pulled up a fare on Delta's website, JFK-Edinburgh on June 1, Paris-JFK on June 21 (don't know your dates) and the total with tax is $1177.13. It's exactly the same itinerary you'd get with Air France, i.e. Delta's plane (this time with a Delta flight number) between JFK and EDI, then Air France's plane (this time with a Delta flight number) from Paris back to JFK.

You'd only need 5 Europe Airpass coupons, (1) Edinburgh-Paris; (2 & 3) Paris-Lourdes-Paris; and (4 & 5) Paris-Nice-Paris. One Zone 3 coupon @ $120 and 4 Zone 2 coupons @ $90, total $480 plus tax, so around $1680 counting everything.

On the phone Air France is trying to sell you an itinerary with only their own airplanes, thus a round-trip to Paris before going to Edinburgh, while Delta online will be happy to sell you the open-jaw itinerary that avoids the first plane change through CDG en route to Edinburgh. And frankly, avoiding CDG as much as possible is a good thing.

I'd go with Delta.

Oh, on the Airpass... All the alliances have something like them - you can only buy them if you're flying on one of the alliance members on the transatlantic segments. They can't be bought online, only over the phone; however they don't have to be bought at the same time as the longhaul ticket (which should be bought online to save money.) So first buy the transatlantic ticket and then phone to buy the airpass flights. They'll confirm your eligibility once you can prove to them that you're flying on an alliance member over the pond.

Delta and Air France are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, so no problem buying the airpass coupons from either one.

Gardyloo - Thanks so much. On the phone with Delta now. How can I figure out which zone PRG-MUC and MUC-VCE would be?

Ok, after 35 minutes on the phone with Delta they have told me I cannot purchase a Europe pass for two stops, there's a minimum of three stops (the city of origination and departure don't count!?!) so I'm one city short. The tickets from PRG-MUC are running $1000 and MUC-VCE $565 so I am totally bummed I can't get them for $90 each! I will keep the pass in mind for future trips. Thanks for all the info!

For MUC VCE try Tuifly and I believe you can get a sleeper train between Munich & Prague

London to Paris is Eurostar

The tickets from PRG-MUC are running $1000 and MUC-VCE $565 so I am totally bummed I can't get them for $90 each! I will keep the pass in mind for future trips. Thanks for all the info!

So add a stop - PRG-MUC-MXP-VCE

For distances, use the Great Circle Mapper at http://gc.kls2.com/

You have to stay at least 24 hours at each stop and we don't have enough time to add in an extra city. Thanks for the distance link.