Hello Friends:
My husband and I are planning to visit Greece (Athens-Mykonos-Santorini, total 10 days)at end of May,2008. We are looking for flights from USA (Philadelphia or Newark or JFK) to Athens, and we are finding expensive plane tickets. What we are seeing online is around $1400.00. That seems very expensive. Any suggestions where to buy ticket....I thought it will be around $500.00... any travel agents we can call... Please help.. we really want to go to Greece this May but $1400.00 per ticket seems very very expensive.
Thank you

Help

Hi,
I haven't seen $500 tickets to Athens in 20 years. That being said try www.kayak.com I found Iberia $982 from JFK May 21-31. If you leave May 7-17 Continental has direct from Newark $932. Good luck

Yipper

Have you thought of flying via London?
You can book an Easyjet flight London-Athens quite cheaply. If you fly into LGW you can get an Easyjet flight out to Athens. I do this every time. It just means you might (not always) have to stop over in London.

If you find anything under $1,400 this summer to Athens, jump on it. I've been watching fares to Athens for months.

there are very few American airlines that fly nonstop to Greece-Delta is the only one that I can think of that flys JFK-ATH or ATL-ATH(although that may be seasonal?)$1400 doesn't seem expensive to me in 2008 for a flight to Athens especially at that time of the year.

$500 plane tickets barely get you to the Carribean these days.....

We're flying from Montreal to Athens on May 30th on Air Transat for $930. including taxes and fees non stop. It's a charter and you have to go and return when they do but the price is the best I could find. You're probably too far from Montreal to take advantage of this particular flight but maybe you could check charter flights from your area for a better deal. Regular Air Canada flights are in the 1400. range.

wparmar

If you fly to London there could be another combination for you.

easyJet in 2008 are operating a direct service to Mykonos from Gatwick a few times a week. They recently bought the charter airline GBAirways and for this year they are using that airline's slots and continuing the service.

However, easyJet have made it clear that they are not operating the route as a charter service but one available to any traveller.

You could therefore fly easyJet to Athens and return to London from Mykonos.

bill

You could also fly into Heathrow then take BA to Athens. We got a good price on LHR-ATH on BA for May.

AA from JFK-LHR is $750 round trip on May 30.
BA from LHR-ATH round trip is $3l8, total $1068 p.p.

BA from JFK-ATH round trip is $1223.

Aer Lingus JFK-LGW May 28-June14 - $823
Easy Jet LGW-ATH May 29-June 13 - $273
Total $1096

And I'm sure there are more combinations at even lower fares, but you won't find a $500 fare this year. Good luck.

Hi Crcwc1,

I'm doing the exact same thing you mentioned -- but I must not be finding the same good price you are!

For LHR/ATH, roundtrip in September, it's approx. $500 per person.

Regards,

Melodie

Also check out the Aegean Airlines website. They are now showing flights out of London Stansted.

We flew Delta last May out of JfK outbound and Atlanta homebound for $1,100, purchased many months in advance. On our return trip, our plane had an engine problem and Delta put us (all passengers) up with dinner at the comfy Soffitel at the Airport. Plane was repaired overnight and we flew out the next morning.

Your best bet from PHL might be to try US Airways. They fly a newish route to Athens. Rates will be higher in May than in winter or early spring...but you'd be hard-pressed to find something for $500. I'd say if you find anything around the $800 mark, you should jump on it.

FWIW, we're going to Athens in Nov. I've been checking fares for weeks (IAH - ATH using different airlines and connections) and the lowest I've found is about $800 - $850. And that's for low season. So, no, I don't think you're going to find anything near $500.

I bought my tickets to Athens on Continental for $508 - it's a direct flight from Newark.

Granted we are flying in March but even so Continental was much lower than any of the others.

Good luck.

Quick question about flights. I'm finding most are in the $1200 range. We will be traveling this August. I'm torn btw holding out for another month to see if they go down at all and knowing that I will be beating myself up if they go up.

Any advice on waiting?? There is also the fact that the price of oil keeps going up, which I fear might alter prices.

travelnewbie, there's about as much chance of that as of your local gas station dropping gas prices back to 2.75 or so. Crude is $100+ a barrel. The war goes on and on.

buy the tickets

My ticket from LAX to ATH via ATL on Delta last May cost me around $1800. (Actually that's what it would have cost me if I had paid for it; I decided to cash in 100K miles instead.) I'm thinking anything under $1500 to ATH from the US is a good price these days, even from the east coast. And to travelnewbie, I wouldn't wait on that $1200 fare to move, because at this point if it does it will probably move up.

May 2 to 12
Montreal-Athens return
AirTransat
$898 CDN