First of all, everything flys through Athens in Greece. Second, you can't get to Greece on United, you have to use *A. First time in Greece we flew Austrian Air into Vienna, Second time we flew (last June) we flew Swiss Air through Zurich. Once you are in Europe, it's easy to get into Athens and then use Aegean (with *A) into any of the islands.

The trick in over the Atlantic. We are in ORD and have always had to route through another city. We had good luck routing through Montreal or IAD.

I would trying calling United and seeing if there are any flights available on Austrian or Swiss Air. They don't always come up on united.bomb

You will probably have to make 2 stops before you get to Athens. Just the nature of the beast. Aegean does fly out of Philadelphia.

You don't say how many seats you need. We needed 3 in J, and more than 2 seats are a little more difficult. I generally book about 280 days in advance.

Lufthansa usually has good availability coming back from Europe through Munich or Frankfort.