Flying to Prague from SFO

October 2019? I plugged mock dates into Skyscanner SFO to Prague, Budapest to SFO and there are a ton of flights with reasonable layovers, one stops (Lufthansa has the best). If you are looking at 2020 it’s too soon and you are not seeing all the flights as they are not yet scheduled.

A recommendation of a different sort would be to pick the most interesting of your direct flight options and spend a few days in that city (and perhaps 1 other) before taking a train or short flight to Prague: Amsterdam, Frankfurt (train to Dresden, then Prague), London, Munich (train to Vienna, then Prague), Paris.

Thanks for the responses. We have a short window of time to get there so stopping along the way is not an option. We're joining the 10/27 tour so may run into some Forum users there.

I use Google Flights for my schedule-and-fare research.

Have you tried a multi-city search in Google Flights (SFO-PRG, BUD-SFO)? (flights.google.com) If you left the 25th or 26th and return on the 3rd or 4th, plenty of decent options on Lufthansa/United (stopping in Munich) or on Swiss/United (stopping in Zurich) in the 14 hour total travel time range. Avoid the 55 minute layover in Munich (that won't work). $900-ish each round trip, which isn't horrible considering it's five weeks out.

Here's a sample I found quickly (Lufthansa/United)

Flight 1 Fri, Oct 25

8:55 PM San Francisco International Airport SFO

5:15 PM+1 Munich International Airport MUC

Travel time: 11h 20m

2h 0m layover

7:15 PM+1 Munich International Airport MUC
8:05 PM+1 Václav Havel Airport Prague PRG

Flight 2 Mon, Nov 4

1:20 PM Budapest Airport BUD
2:40 PM Munich International Airport MUC

1h 50m layover

4:30 PM Munich International Airport MUC

7:35 PM San Francisco International Airport SFO

Travel time: 12h 5m