Eastern Europe Destinations on *A
 

I'm interested in a trip to Eastern Europe in late summer / early fall.

Any suggestions? Would obviously prefer a *A carrier, a *A award, UA, etc due to my status. Don't mind flying Y if the fare is right, and especially if the airline is a good one.

What are the inexpensive options? I'd really like to go to Prague, but never been to Eastern Europe at all so I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks!

All big Eastern European cities will be served by either LH, OS, LO or SK. So no problem to get a *A flight to Eastern Europe.

Where do you want to fly from? Your profile says California, so UA might be a good idea as you can get Economy+ seats. Then connect from one of the European *A hubs to the Eastern European city.

Just use the ITA software page to find a good routing with a good price. Then you can buy it on one of many travel sites.

SmilingBoy.

We did Prague and Krakow on an award last summer. We really enjoyed both, and will return in a year or two. We did "C" class, so I can't speak to the economy seats.

We took a direct LO flight from ORD to KRK. We paid for the connect from KRK to WAW (2 nights there) and then on to PRG. (Fare was just over $125)

From PRG, we returned to ORD via CPH on SK.

If you have more time, you can throw in Budapest, or some other city.

Thanks for the info. I'd be flying from LAX.

I am really just looking for what airports to fly into that offer good rates. I am not decided on my destination- more than likely the fare will decide that.

But I don't think ITA can tell me the best rates to *anywhere* in Eastern Europe. So I'm just looking for a starting point for my search. Maybe a half dozen places to start searching for.

Bob your advice is sort of what I was looking for, so thanks!

Thanks again

Try selecting 300 miles around Bratislava or Prague. This will give you most of Eastern Europe.

SmilingBoy.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that because you can't search for other airports with a flexible date search.

But at least I can plug in specific dates and see what the best airports are, rate wise.

I use Travelocity without dates (flexible dates) for city pairs. It takes some work, but is pretty accurate, and gives you the days the fares are available. Often, buying separate tickets is a lot cheaper. One set for over the Atlantic, then a separate set for intra-european. Look up some foreign sites for good prices, such as Opodo, easylow, kelkoo, europebyair, etc. This site gives you a great idea on what to look for as to airlines. http://www.whichbudget.com/

It helps if you at least pick a few cities, and check the fares. i.e. KRK-PRG, PRG-BUD, etc. Also do the reverse, and the fares might be different, i.e KRK-PRG could be a completely different price than PRG-KRK. Try different combinations and you get some wild results, believe me. Also, sometimes you can take a train between city pairs, and use open jaw tickets in Europe. They are a lot more flexible in many cases than we are here. For example, you can fly to Prague, take a train to Vienna or Badapest, then return by air from Budapest. Open jaws work fine with awards, and often with purchased tickets.

In the example I used above, we flew LO from KRK-WAW. Stayed for 2 nights and then flew to PRG. They considered it a one way flight on the same ticket.

Several times we flew to LHR and returned from CDG (or reversed) for the same price as a R/T (or a few dollars more). We do the same for Italy now, and arrive and depart from different cites, instead of doubling back and wasting time to get a R/T ticket.

Experiment and have some fun. Sometimes I have more fun figuring out the crazy routings than with the trip itself............but I'm wierd anyway! :p

Good luck, and keep asking questions. Everything that I told you was what I learned here from others.