Our family of 4 is planning a trip to just outside Toulouse for the month of May. We are travelling from Burlington, VT (BTV) and don't mind an 'odd' route to save on airfare. From Burlington, we're used to using JetBlue as a way to a major airport (JFK), but from there I'm not having much luck. We don't mind flying into a smaller city (than Paris or London for example) and then taking a local discount carrier to Toulouse (or something close), but I haven't been able to find anything affordable (cheap).

well as you must be aware flights from JFK /Newark to europe go only to a very limited number of major citiies. I believe in France the only direct flights are to Paris or Nice. Also, the discount carriers in europe typically do not fly out of the major ariports but out of (nearby?) secondary ones - so any savings would be eaten into by ground transport costs. May is high season and good fares will be scarce. What type of fares have you found/are you looking for?

I found a British Airways flight for $425 to London. Perhaps the train to Paris and then a lowcost air carrier from there. I'm looking into the train today (my 3 year old would be thrilled), but it's all still way up in the air.

Toulouse is well served by discount airlines from London. Do a google search for Toulouse France airlines.

Try Easyjet from Gatwick

www.easyjet.com

Steve

I do think you are going about this the wrong way. By the time you add up all the seperate tickets, I'm sure you could do better just pricing 1 ticket.

Anyway, if you still insist on doing it yourway this site will tell you which budget airline and from where flies to Toulouse.

http://www.whichbudget.com/en/

Good luck and have a great trip!

Basically agree with AAFF on this - even though it may be cheaper, it's just not worth the hassle and could entail significant additional costs if anything goes awry.

Just plugged in some random dates in May (17-23) and cost for BTV-TLS on Delta (change in BOS and CDG) is $782 all in.

If you want to go the low fare route, JFK to LGW nonstop on AA is $379 and you could fly onwards to TLS on EasyJet. So yes, it would probably be cheaper if you can get good fares on both JetBlue and EasyJet, but I have no idea what the schedules look like - you would need extensive layovers as you have to pick up your bags and re-check-in each time. Plus, if you are delayed for any reason and miss the onward flight you had booked, you will most probably have to purchase a full-fare ticket on the next flight (unless the airline is willing to make an exception) - not a very attractive prospect IMO... The only way to almost eliminate that risk is to schedule an overnight layover, but that entails additional costs and you would be changing planes twice in each direction!

Hope this helps,
Andre

Oops, my bad!

The AA flights I refered to are to/from LHR, NOT LGW, which means you would have to take a long bus ride between both airports - so even less convenient!

Andre