Budget Travel - Anyone know a good site for cheap flights from US to Belgrade, Serbia?

I am planning a family trip to belgrade, Serbia (BEG) in June/July. Since there will be 5 of us travelling, I want to find the cheapest tickets possible with the one caveat that I will not travel on Lufthansa or via Frankfurt. We will travel from EWR. Does anyone have any suggestions or know of any websites that might be helpful?

in consideration of the announcement in the europe forum, I move this thread into budget travel :)

regards

chrissxb
moderator
europe forum

expedia is usually OK

http://www.itasoftware.com
http://www.sidestep.com

The above can offer you alternate connection cities. It appears that British Airways flies from EWR to Serbia.

expedia is usually OK

...as is Kayak.

If you restrict yourself to EWR departures only, you are probably limiting yourself to BA, Alitalia and Lufthansa unless you are happy with more than one connection. You might want to consider nearby airports as well for better deals.

You might also want to consider the connecting airport in Europe that you would have to use. You have ruled out FRA, LHR is unpopular but in theory(!) all the problems will be over when BA moves to T5 in March, CDG is also widely loathed (though I've never had a problem with it). Zurich and Vienna are nice airports to transit, and tend to have good connections to South East Europe.

I have flown a lot to Bulgaria (which is just next door to Serbia). Czech Air, Air France and LOT are often the most competitive routes. Czech and AF are Sky Team and LOT is Star Alliance and all are perfectly reasonable choices.

But why rule out LH? I could imagine they'r the cheapest and FRA isn't as bad as LHR or CDG for transit.

I just cashed in my miles today to spend May and early June in Serbia. I love that place! Both times I've been I cashed in miles in miles for StarAlliance flights. Both times I'm connecting thru Zurich and flying into Belgrade on Swiss.

Any suggestions for budget hotel accommodations or apartment rental agencies in Belgrade?

I would use wikipedia, look up Belgrade airport, see which low-cost airlines fly to Belgrade from which airports then get to those airports with whatever airline.