You might have trouble finding something cheap since fares this year are higher than last year, you’re staying so long, and Athens is almost never among the cheaper cities to fly to/from. STA has that itinerary on a student fare for $1025. I imagine STA & Student universe are about the same, but I’ve had good luck with STA changing my travel dates cheaply & easily during my trip.

Thanks for the info, augustin… I hadn’t checked STA. Are there any airports in Greece that are cheaper to fly out of? I want to round out my trip island hoping, hence the location!

I think $1025 is pretty good for your itinerary. If you haven’t already, also check Travelcuts and GenerationFly—which also have student tickets—as well as Kayak, Cfares, Airdeals, and Mobissimo which have good multi-city flight searches.

By “continental” do you mean the airline?

No I mean within the continent. Thanks for the site suggestions, I’ll check the ones I didn’t look at.

I’m also flying from Brussels to Morocco, Nice to Naples, and Montenegro to Athens during the trip. What’s the best way to search for deals on those short flights?

You can check routes for budget airlines here:
http://www.whichbudg…

Search engines that include budget carriers:
http://www.mobissimo…
http://www.skyscanne…

If you like a big party, make sure to visit Munich during the Oktoberfest, which will start at september 18th. best is to visit it during weekdays.

Hey Bigfoot, thanks for the recommendation. I have friends who’ve been and they say it is wild. Unfortunately however, I have to be back in the states by September 1st so I won’t be able to make that.

I will be doing the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and Bastille Day in Paris so all is not lost.

Prices to MUC have gone up min $150 everywhere, but Brussels is available for $1053.47 and won’t mess up my itinerary so I’m thinking about booking today.

The cheapest flight I found using all of the above mentioned sites was through STA travel. The details are:

Going there
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
US Airways US964 – Airbus Industrie A321-100/200
Depart 8.30am San Francisco International Apt, CA
San Francisco International Apt (SFO)
Arrive 4.54pm Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia International Apt (PHL)
Wait 1h 21m
US Airways US750 – Boeing 757-200
Depart 6.15pm Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia International Apt (PHL)
Arrive 8.00am Brussels, Belgium Brussels (BRU)

Total Travel Time 14h 30m

Coming back
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
US Airways US759 – Boeing 767 (Freighter)
Depart 11.45am Athens, Greece Athens (ATH)
Arrive 4.00pm Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia International Apt (PHL)
Wait 2h 00m
US Airways US401 – Airbus Industrie A321-100/200
Depart 6.00pm Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia International Apt (PHL)
Arrive 9.14pm San Francisco International Apt, CA San Francisco International Apt (SFO)

Travel Time 19h 29m

—————

What do you guys think.. should I book? Anything better I’ve missed? I’m flexible with the landing destination and take-off point as long as I can get a cheap flight to either Munich or Brussels and from Athens on the way back.

Expedia has SFO>MUC / ATH>SFO your dates $1180 total. Try them to see if they come up with something better using BRU or DUS, for example. Cfares, Kayak, and the consolidators that I listed in our new user thread are good for multi-city flights search, too.

Thanks Don – I had tried all those sites, and ran another search this morning… sta is still the best at $1053.47… I’ll do another day of searching and probably bite the bullet and spend the $1k tomorrow.

I’ve purchased my tickets to europe!

Depart 5/24
Return 8/31
SFO-LHR & LHR-SFO nonstop on Virgin Atlantic
$759 total

I’m really happy about the direct flight – now I just need to purchase my connections to Brussels and from Athens… I did a few quick searches on rumbo and these should set me down $100 each. Still much cheaper than the initial option and no hassle at O’Hare. Thanks for the help guys.