Europe - Flights to Europe suggestions

My parents have booked a cruise from Venice to Barcelona. I'm so excited!! They never do this kind of stuff, going to be awesome for them.

I'm trying to find inexpensive travel options to get them from Minneapolis to Venice (via Paris if possible/economical), and then a way home from Barcelona at the end of the cruise. Any suggestions? Or suggestions on the best way for me to go about looking at flights

The cruise is July 21 to Aug 2, and they are planning to stay in Europe a few days before and after, depending on where they fly into.

Thanks in advance for any help!!!

Best,
Eric

Welcome to FT!
Have you tried looking at www.expedia.com or www.orbitz.com or www.vayama.com or any of the airline sites? Or you could call a travel agent?
Folks on here will be happy to help with evaluating options you propose. But you need to do some legwork yourself.

Welcome to FT!


Last summer DL served Venice nonstop from JFK and US Air did the same from PHL. Multiple options from BCN back to the U.S.

Your parents would be wise to plan to arrive at least two days ahead of the cruise.

Check kayak, ITA software or Vayama for up-to-date routes and fares.

If its this Summer, they are looking at $1600+ per ticket. That's with bad connections. It's likely to be closer to $2k. A one stop connection is going to be on Delta metal (at least in part) and then on a Skyteam partner like Air France or KLM. You are likely to find cheaper by doing some non-Skyteam airlines.

I would start by looking at something like Kayak.

For the second year in a row, our airfare for our 11 day Med cruise in July is more than the cruise. We did find tickets at just over $1k each, but that was in April. For what it's worth, they were on KLM.

Good luck!

Hey--- thanks for the thoughts all. I was able to find <$800 round trip tickets myself to London in September, surprised that the best I've found so far to Venice or Barcelona is ~$1500 round trip in July. Trying instead to find the cheapest flight over for them, and then train/Ryanair from there as time is not really a constraint.

Best I've found so far is about $1100 round trip through Paris on American Airlines. Would like to save them some travel and avoid going to Paris twice, so still looking.

Trying out hipmunk now, wish me luck!

Cheers,
Eric

Found American Airlines $1067, they fly into Paris via Dallas. 7 days to get to Venice, end the cruise in Barcelona, then a flight from there back to Minneapolis 5 days later. Perfect!

Found this utilizing hipmunk to find the best travel days, then searched those dates on kayak multi-city search to find the flight I wanted.

We'll see if this meets parental approval. Thanks for the help all.