taconictraveler

Can anyone give me the best routing between these two places? I realize I could go to various airline sites, but I do know there are sites where one can compare various flights/routing

NoFlyZone

http://www.kayak.com and http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

doug_stallings

You should also consider a train as well as flights. It might make more sense to transfer to a train in Paris. I think the train takes only about 3 hours, and you could possibly leave from the TGV station htat's right at Charles De Gaulle.

travelgourmet

Well, you only have a handful of reasonable options.

- Air France, via Paris
- KLM, via Amsterdam
- Iberia, via Madrid

For Air France and KLM, you might be able to book these as a Delta flight # and/or include a Delta-operated leg. For the Iberia flights, you might be able to book these as an AA flight # and/or include an AA-operated leg.

There are no *Alliance flights, and BA requires changing airports in London, which is not practical, IMO.

Searching on Kayak or ITA, as noted above, should give you most of your flight options.

The train is an option, but this will take 4-1/2 hours from Paris. There are options with no changes.

taconictraveler

thanks all. I'll look in to the train, ESP. If we could get it at CDG airport.I guess the train ride is 4.5 not 3 hours, is that right?

another appealing possibility is Iberia thru Madrid, since we might want to go to Bilbao after the France part of our trip, and could possibly more easily return to New York via Madrid.

frogoutofwater

Where are you based? If you're in the Northeast, you could look at flying OpenSkies (owned by BA) to Paris-Orly and then fly Air France from Orly to Bordeaux (and that way, you can avoid connecting at CDG). OpenSkies is an all business class airline, offering two classes of service. Biz Seat is like a super-deluxe premium economy (about 50" of recline, 2x2 seating) and Biz Bed is a lie-flat (or nearly lie flat) bed. Biz Seat is a pretty good bargain for the comfort you get - probably around $1500 a ticket. Departures from NYC and Washington.

taconictraveler

Frog: Yeah, you know I thought of that! But then forgot! thanks for reminding me. We flew to Amsterdam with OpenSKies when they were flying there, a couple of years ago. we did Biz seat, and it was just great!

we were told we might get a train directly from CDG to Bordeaux, so that's probably one reason I stopped thinking about OpenSkies.

do you know if we could get a train from Orly south?

Gardyloo

I personally find the air > rail connection a nuisance even if it's within an airport station - luggage schlepping while you're tired, etc. According to the DB website (and not knowing your dates) there appears to be a couple of direct trains (no changes) between the CDG TGV terminal and Bordeaux daily in the spring. Summer?

Going on Iberia through (JFK-) Madrid there's an easy connection from T4S to T4 with around 90 min or so connection time (you have to go through Schengen passport control) right to Bordeaux airport. Bags would be collected at BOD. Piece of cake.

taconictraveler

Sorry, I forgot to say, it will be mid- to late September, probably around the 20th, ideally, to get to our shared house in Western Perigord on the 23rd.

Thanks, Gardyloo, I think you mean that although we would go thru passport control at Madrid, our bags would go straight thru to Bordeaux Merignac, is that right? It sounds good. I've never flown Iberia, are they not in group with AA?

Gardyloo

<i>I think you mean that although we would go thru passport control at Madrid, our bags would go straight thru to Bordeaux Merignac, is that right? It sounds good. I've never flown Iberia, are they not in group with AA?</i>

Right - immigration at Madrid, customs at Bordeaux.

Right, both AA and Iberia are in the Oneworld alliance and have recently begun quite a lot of schedule and operations integration. As for flying, Iberia is okay in coach, very good in business class. AA also flies JFK-MAD and you would also arrive at T4S, so little difference in terms of logistics. Madrid is a huge airport but easy to navigate - the T4S > T4 switch is by automatic train that takes just a few minutes.

The Madrid - Bordeaux connection would be on Iberia's regional subsidiary Air Nostrum, in a smaller plane.

If you're planning other travel in Spain I'd think using Madrid as your international gateway would make a lot of sense. I also think that if you look at the numbers, flying JFK-MAD-BOD will be cheaper than JFK-CDG + train.

frogoutofwater

I don't think you can get a train to Bordeaux directly from Orly. The advantages of Orly would be: 1) OpenSkies, 2) smaller airport to navigate, and 3) direct flights (if you could find a good connection) to Bordeaux. You might be able to book a one-way flight and return by train, spending a night or two in Paris on the way home.

As for the routing through Madrid, one thing I experienced a year or so ago was that my ticket cost for an open jaws flight EWR-CDG, MAD-EWR on Continental was significantly lower than EWR-CDG, CDG-EWR. It might have just been a timing thing, or it might have been a pricing thing relating to business class (I was flying in J to Paris on a business trip), but my company saved about $1500 by having me fly home through Madrid (where I wanted to stop off anyway) than having me fly home from Paris.

I'm not sure if there are Barcelona-Bordeaux flights, but I have also noticed that sometimes, direct flights from the US to Barcelona can be cheaper than direct flights to Madrid.

pavot

We'll be flying to Bordeaux via London with British Airways next summer. They fly to BOD via Gatwick, though, rather than LHR.

Just another option no one has mentioned.

taconictraveler

thanks all, for the good info so far. now I have a lot of options to investigate. since I am sort of wanting to also go to Bilbao, maybe the Madrid routing might be favored at the moment.

alanRow

pavot - someone did and rightly said it's a bad option as you have to pass through immigration, collect luggage, go through customs, find the coach station, pay for the coach yourself, sit in a coach for an hour, check-in, go through security - all of which BA says "only" takes 3 hours but unless you like risk I would never allow less than 4 hours.

And you'd still have to go through immigration / collecting luggage / going through customs once you reached Bordeaux as the UK isn't part of Schengen

One possibilty that hasn't been mentioned is Aer Lingus via Dublin if travelling between March & October - no need to change airports, no passport checks at Dublin as long as you transit airside, no collecting luggage, no customs...