Return to USA from Lyon

I guess you just have to check all of the airline sites to see. No telling.

Are there direct flights from Lyon to the USA and if so, where in the USA?

As a former Lyon resident, and as one who made several trips for business purposes between the U.S. and France before moving to France, I believe you will find the better choice will be for you to take the train (TGV) from Lyon Part-Dieu to CDG and then to leave from there.

Have you already bought a one-way ticket to Europe? If not, you may save money by purchasing a multi-city (open-jaw) ticket from Miami to your initial destination and back from Lyon/Paris/wherever to Miami. Two one-way tickets are likely to cost more.

To reiterate, it's smart financially to use a multi-city search function to assemble the entire itinerary. There is train service from Charles de Gaulle airport to Lyon but you may be able to get an easy flight connection that's faster and cheaper. Same situation for the return. Marseille, for instance, is a convenient airport but you will have to get up early in the morning to make a connection through an international gateway such as Paris. Returning to Paris by train, however, will effectively remove a day from your visit. Buying one-way tickets is costly and puts more stress on airport transfers. Best search tool, although it doesn't sell tickets:
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

My family did exactly as K advises above last summer and took the direct train from Lyon to deGaulle. We left early, which saved us some grief because the train was delayed, I think because of a labor dispute.

On this forum, the strategy of taking a long-distance train to an airport sometimes comes in for criticism, in that if the train does not run you will miss your flight. I think there is some validity to this, though the odds are good, and that everyone should weigh his or her own tolerance for risk.

The Lyon train runs something like hourly.

One way tickets on trans atlantic flights are costly; this is not necessarily true of domestic flights and the legacy airlines are beginning to compete here. I recently booked 3 flights in the US for a triangular trip and did better booking one ways with three different airlines. But internationally an open jaw ticket is always cheaper than booking a similar trip in one way segments. Multi-city bookings tht include domestic flights in Europe may or may not be cheaper than booking the open jaw round trip from the US and then adding budget airlines flights within Europe. We have found the later to be more cost effective e.g. Into Paris and out of Madrid on one ticket but a flight from Paris to Seville on a separate one way budget airline.

I would never take a train the day of a flight. You need to be in the city of a high stakes departure the night before. The cost is enormous for missing that flight. YOu lose the cost of the ticket and then have to rebook a one way. Travel insurance often does not cover this kind of fail. I have been on a train that came in 5 hours late to Paris and someone here noted a labor dispute on their trip. Too risky

Thanks to all of you who have replied so far. I know that 1-way tickets are way too costly. My trip will be multi-city, with Rome or Milan as my European entry point, and I will buy my tickets that way, but I wanted to find out the best way to return to the US from Lyon, which is my last destination in Europe for this trip.

And if any of you care to respond further, I see that Geneva might possibly be another gateway for the return to the US, if any of you have done it that way.

If you go to Air France's website and look for flights from "Lyon," it will include trips that start at Lyon's airport (code LYS) and trips that start at Lyon's Part-Dieu train station (code XYD). The train goes to CDG, where you pick up a flight. The advantage of booking the train as a segment of your total flight is that it is then under the same rules as booking a single air ticket; if there is a problem with the train that causes you to miss the flight, Air France is responsible for putting you on another flight. Details of this here: http://www.airfrance.us/US/en/common/resainfovol/avion_train/reservation_avion_train_tgvair_airfrance.htm

Geneva, like Marseille and Lyon, doesn't have nonstops back to Miami. Unless you want a lot of changes or can save a fortune by taking them, look to fly from Lyon to Miami on one ticket, with one change (either flight from LYS to somewhere to MIA, or train from XYD to CDG, followed by flight to MIA).

When I punch this into matrix.itasoftware.com, I get one stop flights via Lisbon on TAP for $1084. Into Milan and out of Lyon. WOW is cheaper, but the flight times are terrible.