Unfortunately, that’s a normal fare for peak season on Texas to Germany. I used Orbitz’s flex-search and found seats available $1058 around your dates; Continental to O’Hare, then Air India to Frankfurt (Cheaptickets.com has it; Orbitz for $4 more).

Checking most of the major gateways in Europe using your departure cities, cheapest I see is $747 IAH-MAN roundtrip on American, and $140 MAN-FRA on Lufthansa, so this is $175 cheaper overall than Air India via Chicago. I did not check flight times to make sure these will work for a transfer at Manchester. If these interest you, I would try to book direct from the airlines, www.aa.com www.lufthansa-usa.co… USAir with a similar fare to Manchester; www.usair.com

I also see cheapest is Condor at $857 from Las Vegas (checking Orlando, Phoenix, Denver, Miami too). Cheapest from your cities I see is $211 to Vegas roundtrip. Again, I checked days but not flight times; you’ll have to do that if this one interests you.

Thank you very much for those options.  I am thinking to go ahead and do a multi-flight as you have described.  It would save around 175.  I need to check the times as well…

I fly SAT-FRA  2 or 3 times a year.  Last year I flew right at the end of the World cup ( around July 10-24 ) for $920.  Booking early is ALWAYS better. If you look into CGN stay away from Continentals SAT-CGN (conn. Newark).  It was the worst flight/connection I’ve ever had. Flights are frequently late and the aircraft is very small. They layover is an unavoidable 7-8hours.