nfldbeothuk

I'm hoping someone with more experience in booking flights can help me with this problem.
I'm trying to arrange a reasonably-priced flight from Newfoundland (Canada) into Venice & out of Budapest this summer (& before you say flights are cheaper out of season, I'm a teacher). The only airline I can book through directly for flights from NL to Europe is Air Canada, & their current price is $1900--out of my budget. But when I try kayak or cheaptickets or Expedia or travelocity, I end up with better prices (around $1300-1350 this week), and ridiculous-sounding connection times. Surely 50 minutes to go through immigration and change planes in Frankfurt is unreasonably tight, and I know Montreal well enough to say that 70 minutes to go through customs/immigration on return is VERY optimistic. But these are the options I'm getting.
Is there any way I could enter my flight inquiry to get a better connection time? I really don't want to be stranded in Paris, Frankfurt, or even Montreal.

GoSox

I would suggest going to a local travel agency and have them book the flight for you.

Rastaguytoday

nfldbeothuk,

Before you decide to go to a TA, try some research on your own. Just because they are a TA, it doesn't mean that they know more about what you want than you do.

There is a separate post about flying into Dublin vs the Continent, and the amazing price difference. Check it out.

Ryanair , Easyjet. etc... are cheap connection altenatives.

The cost from the left coast one-way to DUB is about $300 plus taxes.

Remember, you can book an open jaw ticket that would let you leave the Continent from somewhere else for little or no extra charge..

What airport are you flying from?, when is the approximate date you want to fly, and how tolerant are you on layovers?

We'll be glad to help you, but more info is neededl]]

dfr4848

The additional info Rastaguy mentions would be helpful. But I also thought I'd mention that when we run into that problem, I've had some luck using info from, for ex. kayak then going directly to the airline web site. Often it will pull up options with better connections.

Also, don't totally discount the 50 min in FRA. If you're flying on LH, that connection time isn't totally out of line. We've gone through FRA 6 times in the last 4 yrs, and have made connections shorter than that (perfer more of course, but it is doable).

nfldbeothuk

Thanks for comments.
I'm flying from St. John's, in Newfoundland, Canada, as I mentioned. Canada is the big white space above U.S. , lol. Newfoundland is admittedly a bit remote-- as in very large island 3 hr. (air) to Toronto! And there are no direct flights to Europe from Newfoundland, so by hoping for more generous connections I'm ironically trying to increase 16 hour travel times! As I said in my opening, an open jaw ticket is what I'm trying (well, I didn't use those words, but that's what I meant by into Venice and out of Budapest). I hoping to leave in mid July for 3 weeks.

Kay2

On Orbitz you can choose leg of a trip at time rather than a round trip, but I don't think it will let you choose individual connecting flights unless you put in each of the stops/layovers as separate legs.

There used to be one of the online booking websites that let you choose just one leg of a connecting flight at a time and thereby create your own layover, but I'm not sure if any do that now.

You might try posting over on Eurotrip.com. Folks there are really good at knowing which airports to use to/from Europe to

BTW, I randomly tried July 7 - 28 in Orbitz and got the following for US$1027:

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Air Canada 629
Depart: 2:55pm (YYT)
Arrive: 4:08pm Montreal
Time between flights: 1hr 22min

Air Canada 892
Depart: 5:30pm (YUL)
Arrive: 7:25am Rome, Italy
Time between flights: 1hr 35min

Alitalia 1463
Depart: 9:00am (FCO)
Arrive: 10:05am Venice, Italy(VCE)
Total duration: 14hr 40min

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Air Canada 9055 Operated by: LUFTHANSA OR LH CITYLINE -- LH 3453
Depart: 8:55am Budapest, Hungary(BUD)
Arrive: 10:15am Munich, Germany
Time between flights: 1hr 35min

Air Canada 9099 Operated by: LUFTHANSA OR LH CITYLINE -- LH 0474
Depart: 11:50am (MUC)
Arrive: 2:15pm Montreal, Canada
Time between flights: 6hr 45min
Air Canada 632 Depart: 9:00pm (YUL)
Arrive: 12:53am St John's (YYT)

Total duration: 20hr 28min

This certainly gives you lots of extra time in YUL. Others can tell you if 1.5 hours is enough in FCO.

Kay2

Also,
when we were traveling to the same "general area" (and I use that term lightly) we expanded our search because flights to/from our airport to some airports in Europe are really expensive connections.

We ended up modifying our itinerary and flying into Vienna and taking a train to our final destinations. We basically substituted a train leg for a flight leg for much less money and saw scenery in an area we had not visited.