For those of you who are flying from the Washington,DC area to Istanbul ...

The American Airlines website indicated that I had to contact an AA representative to arrange flights from from Washington, DC to Istanbul. That might or might not be because I was attempting to use air miles. I was told by two AA representatives that there are no direct flights from Washington, DC to Europe, that I had to go through NY, Boston or Chicago. They were <i>wrong</i>, so beware.

Orbitz showed there are non-stop flights from IAD (Dulles) to Madrid. When I pointed that out to the AA agent, he said that the flight is probably managed by Iberia Airlines. Fortunately, Iberia is an AA partner, so I was able to book a flight from IAD to Madrid to Istanbul (all on Iberia Airlines) using my American Airlines miles.

One agent told me that these flights are not available all the time, which is why she wasn't aware of them. My flights are booked in May.

A different agent, the one that actually booked my flights, also told me that the flights also don't take place every day. I don't remember which leg of the journey he was referring to. I had to be flexible with my schedule but it worked out just fine.

Hope this helps!

I have now been told that the IAD-Madrid and Madrid-IAD legs are available on Iberia only on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. That's in May. I don't know about other months.

Always do your research before calling. Especially for flights on partner airlines.

An airline phone agent may not and most likely WILL NOT know about all the alternative routings.

Ok Mike - so now we will be able to figure out who will be following who in Turkey

I will be there 5/15 - 5/31, how about you?

Cheese, it's too close to call who will be there first but it is a shame that I won't be able to benefit from your trip report. I arrive in Istanbul in the evening of May 14. We'll be leaving Turkey and going to Rhodes about May 23 or 24.

Wow, you will beat me by 24 hours

We arrive Istanbul late afternoon the 15th (we are leaving the US on the 14th) and will stay in Istanbul til the 19th or 20th, then fly to Kayseri for a 2-3 day visit in the Cappadocia region.

At that point I do not know exactly what will happen next.

Option 1, drive to Antalya and spend the next 7 days driving along the southwest coast and up to Ephesus, then home or

Option 2, fly Kayseri &gt; Izmir on the Thursday flight, see Ephesus and then onto 2 Greek Islands (Samos and then Santorini, maybe?) one day in Athens and then home via Frankfurt.

I just don't know what to do yet!!

Cheese, the idea of your possible visit of Samos brings back fond memories of 1992. We got up at an ungodly hour of the morning to take the first flight from Athens to Samos. That would allow us to catch the boat from Samos to Kusadasi/Ephesus. Regardless of our early-hour arrival on Samos, there were no more boats that day to Turkey. So, we joked all day and ever since about how we were &quot;stuck on Samos,&quot; a place that we very quickly learned is an idyllic island with fresh fish and Greek music on the beach and tranquil picture ops such as this one: http://www.pbase.com/mike_buckley/image/27684588

You'll probably need no more than a day on Samos and you can fly from there to another island or to Athens. Regardless of your decision, you really can't go wrong. But you already know that!