Booking an Open Jaw Flight.

Bill
I always fly open jaw. I always book myself too without using a travel agent. Just be willing to put in a few research hours! I enjoy the process though. I always start with Sidestep. Great engine that searches tons of sites. Comes up with best fares then links you directly to the site offering it (eg Orbitz, airlines own site, Cheap Tickets, etc). Not sure how much you expect to spend or when traveling. I am finding Eastern Europe to cost more than destinations like London or Madrid. I just bought my ticket (for May) last week. American Airlines, $1050, into Athens and out of Lisbon. Also had checked out of Dubrovnik and total was approx $1200.
Good luck!

Where were you hoping to fly into and out of? I have found that with Eastern Europe, it is sometimes cheaper to fly in and out airports such as London, Frankfurt etc. and connect to your Eastern European destinations by discount airlines. It does require some time and research. When are you planning on going and returning?

Bill,
Don't give up and take the option to Hawaii!! It is time consuming to search for the best fare--there are all kinds of strategies--for example, apparently mid-week fare searches find less expensive tickets than week-end searches, etc.

We use www.Kayak.com--they allow you to set "Fare Alerts" so that you'll get an e-mail message that tracks fares. We don't use a travel agent to book flights but do have to search multiple sites to find the best fare.

When we went to Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we flew into Budapest--took a train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, a train to Zagreb, Croatia and flew to Dubrovnik. Then we flew home from Split, Croatia. You'll really enjoy traveling in Eastern Europe! Good luck!

Bill, great post. I once used to work for a travel agency in the UTC area of La Jolla. Every customer who NOT wanted to do Hawaii or "Cabo" was eventually forwarded to me ;-) When, which month(s) do you want to go?

O.K. folks, so I'm hearing you. I've got to do it myself.

I must have read an old book where Rick said use an agent
with consolidator connections.

I do get Kayak and AirfareWatchdog (lover their Logo) alerts.

Since Dubrovnik is a two-stop flight from San Diego anyway,
a round trip flight to one of the cities Conny suggested
followed by a one-way hop on EasyJet (Gatwick to Split)
or RyanAir (Stansted to Zadar) seems the way to go.

EuropebyAir has those pre-paid flights.
They're twice as much but they have a flight from Frankfurt to DBV.
This would start us off at our most southern destination.
Then we'd wind up in Prague for an easy tick off the Eurail pass to get back.

Either way, we'd be on Dalmatian beaches while recovering from jet lag.
But if someone has an opinion as to which option is best, please let me know.

Also, does anyone know which airline that is that EuropebyAir is using
for the FRA to DBV flight?

And finally, why does my topic title keep getting lopped off?

I just checked Christy's recommendation for Sidestep.
That must be the same as Kayak since they knew me when I logged on.

And as to the Question of when: Early fall. Istrian Truffle season starts Sept. 15th!

Skip the travel agents they aren't very helpful in getting deals on airfare. they want to sell the all inclusive packages where they can make money.go to priceline as a start(for fares) and fly into Germany (rest up w/ jet lag) see some sights then train over to Eastern europe. hopefully you are not going during summer, shoulder season is alot more reasonable. Vienna to is a good stop over via train.
then fly out with a cheaper airline as found on www.whichbudget.com to Germany, then fly home.

I flew in to Paris and out of Frankfurt and it was no more expensive than it was to fly round trip in to Paris and back.

I just did a fake search and from San Diego in to Paris and out of Rome and it was 50 bucks cheaper than to fly just in and out of Paris.

I just noticed you said Eastern Europe so, I guess it doesn't help...

Ok, I just did from San Diego in to Warsau and out at Istanbul and it was 100 bucks cheaper than going round trip to Warsau.

I did this on Expedia. Just FYI, all of the searches gave me between $995 and $1020 for the open jaw. I don't know when you are going, I was looking at Mid Oct - Mid Nov.

I hope this has helped.