My wife and I are planning to go from New York to Copenhagen in early August. We have to be in Vienna from the 10th through the 12th and then have two days to get back to NY.

Is flying open jaw the most economic way to travel? Eurpoean airlines are very cheap but I am worried. Air Berlin seems to be the best but I'm not sure.

All suggestions on a selected itenery would be appreciated.

Be careful of buying a seperate ticket on a low cost airline. If you miss you flight, or a connection you are basically are "no show". You also will have a differnt set of luggage weight restrictions on the discount airline. If you want to protect yourself, buy your ticket all together as one, that way you international weight restriction applies to all flights and if something happens on a connection, you are protected.

In this case it sound like you may want to stick with SAS or Austrian airlines. Both are in the Star Alliance so you may be able to fly to CPH on SAS, connect to Vienna on SAS or Austrian and fly home nonstop on Austrian (or you can return by connecting thru CPH on SAS).

One catch, Austrian flys to and from JFK and SAS flys only to and from Newark. If you can do Newark/JFK combo, this is the only way you will land a nonstop.

Yes, get an open-jaw ticket NY-CPH and VIE-NY. Doesn't matter which airline.

Beside Air Berlin, Snowflake - the budget arm of SAS - also flies CPH-VIE.

Fly SAS, they are ok and you will have far more leg room than in thje real cheap airlines. Having said that on SAS you do have to buy your refreshments - so it is nearly a budget airline.

Using beta.itasoftware.com, I found Alitalia to have the lowest fares for open-jaw August NY-CPH and VIE-NY. Around $860 all in. That's pretty decent. Austrian or SAS with one of the legs being non-stop all several hundred.

Now, I don't know if those Alitalia fares are bookable on their website or not. I tried using Orbitz, and it's around $950. Still okay.

If I add the CPH-VIE leg to the same itinerary, it returns an excellent fare of ~$950 on beta.itasoftware. It uses Air Berlin, with a stop at TXL. However, I can't find this fare using Orbitz.

Probably just better and easier to book the open-jaw and then the CPH-VIE leg separately.

I used departure date of 8/2 and return 8/14. The middle flight I have it on 8/10. Fares may differ on different dates.

thanks for the info.