London and Scotland Flight Help and places to stay help

Carol, Let me help you a lttle bit. Its Edinburgh not Edinbourough. We always use an excellent local travel agent to get us to where we are going and back again. You should be able to find one in your area that can coordinate the stops and tickets you need. The Rough Guide to Scotland has been very helpful to us as far as finding hotels and train and bus routes. We have never stayed in Edinburgh but have visited it a number of times on day trips from Glasgow. There is one expert here on Scotland, maybe she can be of more help. We have never been to England but I am sure some one else can help you there.

For the flights, use http://www.kayak.com. Choose "multi city" instead of "one way" or "round trip." Enter your first leg as SFO to LON, and your second leg as EDI to SFO. This will pull up a huge number of flights. Next, look at the filters on the left. Uncheck "nonstop," and for stopover airports, select JFK and uncheck all the others. This will give you an idea of what's available (it will still be a huge number of possibilities). Even if you end up calling the airline or using a travel agent, it's always best to be an informed consumer. Yes, travel agents still exist, and for a complex itinerary like this, you can use them, or can see about calling the airline. Note that both of these options have a surcharge compared with booking online, but in your case, it may be worth it.

When are you planning this trip? Never know what weather will involve so flight can be delayed.Since you want to meet up with Mom at JFK, I suggest you go to a travel agent. Simple reason is that most flights from SF arrive in JFK about mid to late afternoon, most flights leave to Europe maybe between seven and say ten PM. If your flight is delayed for any reason, where can you meet mom? To me there are too many variables so in this case, travel agent might be best.

In London, I try to stay around Notting Hill Gate and Bayswater Stations on The Tube. That's just north of the very desirable Kensington Palace area.
A number of subway lines get you to anywhere in the city promptly. The info above on flights appears right. I'll have to yield to others on Edinburgh that have been there.

Thank you all for information. Please excuse my rushed and bad spelling with initial post! We are going early June for about 3 weeks. Again thanks!
Carol

Have you considered two round trip tickets? You: SF>JFK the day before you and mom fly JFK>Edinburgh/Edinburgh>JFK and you fly home JFK>SF.

Hi, no that doesn't work because of timing and also easier not to get baggage go into city then back again. .. but good idea
thanks

How about red eye flight to NY, catch some sleep at hotel near JFK and then meet mom, that work?

Does it have to be JFK or would Newark work? United has non-stop flights to both Edinburgh and London out of Newark, and given that you are coming from SFO, it would probably be easy to get a United flight with a layover there and then meet your mother and continue on. On Kayak.com, there is an option to filter on layover airport. After you do your search, on the right side of the page click on "more filters" and then scroll down until you see "layover airports". You can select so that only JFK is shown and see what comes up.