Flying LAX to Paris June 2016. Air Ticket advice needed

A very quick search on Kayak, which you should use to get general price information but NOT for booking your tickets, shows that Delta is offering its nonstops from LAX to Paris for some days in June and July for $1300 nonstop. That is a good price for high season and one you should consider. You should buy your tickets directly from the airline.

One other thing - if you're flying internationally with other people's under-18 children, make sure you have a notarized letter of consent from all parents. You can find a simple form online - nothing fancy needed.

Sounds as though you could use a travel agent.

I will address airfares for your coming and going group. I checked today and there are nonstop lights from LAX to CDG for your flexible June and July dates for $1300 pp RT on Air France. I'd note the flight number for your preferred flight and call both sets of parents who have girls returning with you (another issue to discuss about this) and say you are buying your tickets for your flight. Make sure they can buy their child's flight on this same flight (and the cost is OK with them) then everyone buy what they need to buy ASAP. These are good prices nearly $300 less than other main line carriers.

Your husband will need to book a multi city flight, into Paris out of Rome. You should all pay to select your seats at the time of booking if you want to sit next to each other.

We note our seat location and let the other single people who want to fly with us, but on their own tickets, choose nearby seats when they book.

All 3 minor girls will need a notarized letter giving them permission to fly without one or both of their parents.

Sounds complicated with so many people coming along for various parts of your trip but I think you should nail down your flights now then turn to your train requirements next.

Edit: I would do this today.

I think first you need to decide if you want to fly round trip Paris, or open Jaw LAX-Paris, Bordeaux-LAX. You can check both routings for prices on Expedia or Kayak and check rail fare from Bordeaux back to Paris on SNCF. Also take into account timing of return flights and the fact that you will have 4 teen girls to wrangle which may mean that you don't want to come to Paris the night before for an early morning flight or cut it too close and miss a flight, and you will want to consider how you are getting the 5 of you from the train to the airport. It may be easier to fly from Bordeaux where presumably you have families who will drop all of you at the airport and it may not cost much or any more.

Then, once you make your decision, you pick the best flights and let everyone know - if they are buying their own tickets.

A couple more thoughts.

If you are booking lots of separate reservations: Once you have dates all locked down and everyone buys their tickets, you should get the reservation codes and call to have the reservations linked. We do a lot of random craziness like this where our whole family flies to Europe some together, some separate etc.. If the reservations are linked it helps you A - sit together, and B - get changed together if something changes.

For the flights between France and Italy, you should check skyscanner for the best rates.

You can buy your train tickets ahead at SNCF.

Good luck coordinating everything and I agree that now is the time to start looking at these prices and pin down the plan!

Not sure where this advice over a notarized form is coming from, but since it appears all the young ladies are old enough to fly without paying the unaccompanied minor fee there will not be any check of anything for the American girls. (Actually the only time it's even in play is returning home. ) I would assume the French family knows if there are any special requirements for them. (I would recommend some document for the host family permitting them to get any required medical treatment )
I showed up at the airport with 8 teens. None of them were mine. No questions asked

I would buy NOW. Having taken teens to Europe in June your cheap options were sold a while ago,,,,I would not recommend the creative budget fares you will read about (taking budget flight to airport x and then a budget carrier to Paris for example). I say this for 2 reasons. 1. They can be challanging even for experienced travelers. 2. I am going to bet the girls will all have a ton of luggage.

Also. Do you have passports. If not, start that process this week. Turnaround is slower as everyone gets busy planning vacations
Good luck.

I would get the notarized form. I was asked for proof of permission to travel with my 16 year old niece three times during a similar trip a few years ago. On the planning part, I don't think that this trip sounds that complicated, especially if all parties traveling on a given flight do not have to sit together. It's pretty late to start getting tickets for a June flight if getting the best price is important. So, as others have said, get your long haul tickets right now and all you need are round trips for you and your daughter and a multi-city ticket for your husband. You can do that yourself or if you have an Amex card and want assistance, you can call Amex travel and let them find you the flights and times. Use Google.com/flights to look at flights and then book from the airlines if you want to do this yourself. Getting to Bordeaux to Paris is just a question of purchasing train tickets. You can buy those at CaptainTrain.com. Purchase early because the less expensive tickets can sell out quickly (generally train tickets in France go on sale 90 days before the travel date but some summer tickets go on sale earlier). The cheapest tickets are usually non-refundable and non-exchangeable so you should be either sure of travel dates or willing to lose the money if you get those. I'd fly from Bordeaux to Rome and from Rome to Paris. You could do that as a multi-destination ticket for you and a one-way for your husband. I assume that the two French girls and their families will book and purchase their tickets so all you have to do is tell them when you are traveling and the airline and flight number and they can book their travel. And same thing for the other American girl. It's not really the travel logistics that are complicated here -- it's the communication among the ticket buyers to make sure that all purchases line up with the plans

Who asked for this proof? If it's the Thousands Standing Around I refuse to give them stuff like that in general principle (anytime they try to expand their scope of practice I just ask for a supervisor. They whine and tell me to go "this time". )

A 15-year-old is able to fly to and from Europe without an adult.

Flying with my own teenager, she was questioned separately from me twice - once coming out of Scotland and once coming out of Costa Rica. And she was mine and our names on our passports matched! I would not, under any circumstance, travel with someone else's under 18s without that simple notarized document. It takes 5 minutes to write one and maybe 30 minutes to run to your bank and get it notarized. Maybe you'll never be stopped, but if you are it could derail your entire trip. It's like car insurance - you probably won't need it, but you don't go without it.

Here are two links regarding having a notarized letter for US minors flying with one or neither parent. The OP states that her 15 year old daughter will be flying with her mother only on the return flight. This mother will also be accompanying 3 other unrelated minors on her return flight. I know my daughter-in-law always has a letter like this when she goes with our granddaughters to visit her sister in Montreal and our son doesn't accompany them. We had such a letter with us when we took one of our granddaughters to Europe with us without her parents and were asked to show it.

https://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/travel-overseas

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/449/kw/Minor

Notarized letter: I wouldn't worry about when the minor is returning to his/her home country, it's when the minor is leaving their home country without both parents present that I would worry about having a notarized letter.

I have had my children grilled in front of me by Canadian authorities driving into Canada ("what is your middle name, are these your parents, etc.") so a lot can happen even when everyone is traveling together as a family. This was in about 2008 before passports were required, just birth certificates.

Oof, 5 grammatical misuses of the word myself in the original post, hard to read so many at once. There are only 2 correct uses of the word myself, with a reflexive verb (I wash myself) and emphasis (I myself would never vote for Trump).

Canada has very strict requirements for minors traveling without their parents so that may explain the questions mentioned earlier for people entering Canada. As the US Customs website says: "Adults traveling with children should also be aware that, while the U.S. does not require this documentation, many other countries do; failure to produce notarized permission letters and/or birth certificates could result in travelers being refused entry (Canada has very strict requirements in this regard)." I have brought my children into the United States without their father and had no questions from border control at CDG or here but that is not to say that the French border control agents or the airline would not ask questions of a US citizen traveling with un-related French minors. By the way, is this a grammar forum or a travel forum?