Hi everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster. I will be traveling to St. Petersburg this summer for an internship and a course (finishing my master's). I do realize this is last minute, but I'm trying to get the best deal on fare. I am willing to suffer mild difficulty if it saves substantial. So far, I have not found anything cheaper than $1400 round trip Orlando FL to St. Petersburg.

Any tips? Am considering lowballing Priceline, as I'm very flexible... need to get there last week of May/early June, need to leave after Aug. 20th. Also considering $1000 fare to Helsinki and train to St. Petersburg, which from my research is about 5 hours and $100? I have no frequent flier/anything like that, but would qualify for student or youth discount.

I appreciate any help!!

There is a LCC flying to St.Petersburg from Cologne Germany, Germanwings. It's majority owned by Lufthansa and using Airbus equipment. Check their website at http://www.germanwings.com .

There are two daily trains to St.Pete from Helsinki, a more modern Finnish train in the morning and an older but more "luxurious" Russian one in the afternoon. Travel time is 5,5 hrs, much of which is caused by the poor state of the tracks on the Russian side and the engine change at the border.

President Putin is apparently pushing for a faster connection to be established between his hometown and Helsinki so expect changes to the better in the near future.

Yahoo best fares (http://search.travel.yahoo.com/bin/search/bfsearch?z=1&intl=us&oc=FLL&s=p) shows some $400-ish fares from FLL to Europe. You could combine those with some cheap flight to LED, HEL or TLL (both are a short hop to LED). Apart from true LCC's, make sure you check out fares on airlines like Estonian Air and Air Baltic, these can be pretty low, too

to mosburger: Why would they change the engine on the border? There's not even a break-of-gauge as the Finnish railroads were built back when Finland was part of the Russian Empire so they used the standard Imperial gauge.

@apoivre: I would have thought that too, but they still do it. I think it has to do with two things: Different voltage and Russian regulations stating the use of a Russian engine after entering the country. The stop at the border is around an hour or so. The actual immigration procedure is very smooth on both sides and the Russian border guards and customs people seem to have gone through charm school altogether. :)

You could also try taking a LCC in the US and then connecting to a transsatlantic flight. For example, MCO-JFK or to some other major transatlantic gateway on an LCC combined with JFK-LED on another airline (AY? KL? AF? LH? BA? etc.) may be less expensive than a through-fare from MCO. Another option would be to book to MOW, and then either connect SVO2-SVO1 or to do a ground transfer SVO-DME/VKO. You could even do a stopover in Moscow and take the train to St. Petersburg. Combining both options may be even more flexible.

You can try a flight to a Berlin/London and then buying an easyjet ticket to Tallinn.

From Tallinn, there are lots of options to St Petersburg (ferry, train, bus)

P.S. Easyjet are having a sale right now, ending Tuesday.

.. for the suggestions, hopefully it'll work out!

I heard that Delta have sale for flights to Russia this summer