NE = New England? Will you all be travelling together on the exact same itinerary?

Oops, Sorry, NE is for Nebraska. We all will start in Germany and then if easiest/cheapest return from there also. Although, two of our kids would like to fly open jaw and return from Rome and Barcelona. Thanks so much for your help.

So you’re all starting in Germany, or Nebraska? I’m confused.

To get a group rate, you must have 10 travelling all together on the exact same itinerary (flight numbers, days, times).

We will ALL start in Nebraska. There will be 10 -12 of us if I include tickets for some of my sons friends. IF the price is really good we can all follow the exact same schedule. But, if there isn’t much difference some of the tickets would be open jaw as mentioned earlier. Do airlines offer group rates that are lower than individual rates? Thanks again.

Where in Nebraska?  Are you closer to Omaha or Denver?  With 10 tickets you can save a little money over Omaha by flying from Des Moines on some days.  Also, Minneapolis had some direct flights and occasionally prices as good as Chicago — and I assume it’s closer for you?

We are just 35 miles from Omaha.

I seriously doubt there is an Int’l airport anywhere in Nebraska.  I would price fares out of Omaha, but you would likely be much better-off driving to Chicago(ORD) or Minneapolis, and flying non-stop on NWA or United.

I see $640 on Icelandair from MSP to FRA the 10th-25th. Yes, I know that’s not OMA, CHI, or MUC, but if you have his much flexibility, it might work out to save a couple hundred $$ per person. (ie, drive and park at MSP, take train from FRA to Munich Hbf.).

I would call the airlines group desks to see if they can give you a group fare which may or may not be better than what you’ve seen already.
northwest/klm: 1-800-692-6955
united: 800-237-9524
continental: 800-525-1700,
American: 1-800-221-2255
Us airways 800-363-2592
cheers
howie

Good tip from Howie. (And darn nice to list the group sales numbers!). Group discount is normally 10%.

Re: the Icelandair fare, you can book that with an extra 10% discount via SmarterTravel.com. Look for the recent post here about Icelandair’s spring and summer sale; I’ve got more details there. The discount is off base fare, so if 10 seats are available at 640, with discount, you’d be looking at about 590 per seat—which is really good, but I don’t know that they’ll have 10 seats available at that price. If going from MSP is a realistic option for you, then also call Icelandair for a group sales price. Keep in mind that phone reservations won’t know about the SmarterTravel discount. I doubt you can double-dip, 10% group + 10% SmarterTravel discounts.

Thank you all very much for the good info. I will check into these suggestions today!! What a great site! Paula

IMO, Minneapolis is a somewhat shorter and much easier drive than Chicago from the Omaha area and MSP is a smaller and thus “easier” international hub.  I’d pay a few bucks more for tickets from MSP.

I don’t think there are any great promotions for Europe right now, but the Rockford Illinois airport (near Chicago) sometimes has promotions (usually a cash rebate) that are a great deal, plus there’s free airport parking.  Sign up for the “miles ahead” program at http://flyrfd.com/ and they’ll send an e-mail every couple of weeks with the latest promotions.  E-mail comes from cmoyer@flyrfd.com