Multiple destinations (or open jaw) - again

I noticed that too. If the website does not work for me, I call the airline.

All of the websites I use for flights have multi-city (open-jaw) options. I have never used flight/hotel packages because I research and find my own hotels separately. I have looked at that option in the past and I don't remember ever seeing hotel packages as an option when a multi-city flight involved more than two locations. I've never used Tripmasters so can't comment on them.

TripAdvisor seems to work fine with the multi-city options. However, if you really want to get fancy with your flights and connections, a "good" travel agent can help immensely with that.

I do what Nancy does - book the multicity flight and then make my own hotel reservations.

I always book the departure and return flights at the same time, but if I am flying within Europe in the time that I will be there, I usually get a separate ticket for that, sometimes with a discount airline. So, I will purchase a ticket from Detroit to Berlin and from Roma to Detroit, then a ticket for cities within Europe separately if there are several days or weeks in between.

Ditto Zoe and Nancy's method. I book round trip open jaw airfare on Delta as they have long haul flights to Europe out of Seattle and SLC, which are my nearest hubs. Last year I just did the Eurostar between London and Paris but in 2014 I booked a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Venice and it worked fine.

I also want to choose my own hotels, or else am dotting my vacation time with a Rick Steves tour so would have hotels included there anyway.

I usually use Orbitz, never had a problem. But, like others, I book my US to Europe flight and my Europe to US flight at one time. Within Europe I use a separate airline, booking directly, for city to city travel.

First, I think you should feel free to refer by name to other websites if that helps with the questions and answers. Second, I expect most websites aren't set up to book hotels along with flights for multiple destinations -- too limited demand for this all-inclusive service to be worthwhile. I haven't had success even booking a hotel for a short period after landing and before moving on elsewhere, rather than for the whole stay in Europe. Like the others who have posted, I use the flight search engines (usually kayak) and airline websites for flights, and other websites for hotels and cars. I get a lot more choices that way, even if I might miss out on some (theoretical) bargain packages.

retired,

To begin with, as Dick posted I don't believe it's against the rules here to use website names as that may help to clarify the questions and also may be of use to other travellers here.

As others have posted, I'm also one that would never use a flight / hotel combination. I always look for my best flight deals and choose my own hotels as that gives me a better range of choices in terms of location, price and comfort level. I typically use hotels listed in the RS guidebooks. I suspect the hotels you'll get with a package will be the big chains, and possibly located on the outskirts of cities rather than in the main part.

You may have just been using this to illustrate your point, but your example of flying Paris to Amsterdam is ludicrous. Travel by train on that route will be much faster and much easier.

In my experience, your best bet to set up a "true European adventure" will be to do it yourself instead of relying on "package deals". That's what most of us here do.

Some web sites bury open jaw/multicity under 'advanced search options' or similar language.

And sometimes you have to break a 'true' multicity route down into components in order to get reasonable prices. Just because two airlines are alliance partners doesn't mean they've got full access to each others' fare buckets. Example- If you need to do an intra-Europe ticket involving London as part of your route, BA apparently holds onto a lot of the cheap fare buckets for exclusive use to compete with easy jet, etc. and you have to book through them to get the good price rather than booking that same seat as part of an American ticket.

I go to the green grocer for my fruit and veg, and the butcher for my meat.
Sometimes the supermarket does not have exactly what I want.

In other words, it's always best to go directly to the speciality seller, ie. airlines and hotels.
A package wholesaler may appear attractive, until something goes wrong, or you need to make a change. Then in many cases they don't want to know you, or will give you the run around.

I think it really depends on where you want to fly as to the best way to book your tickets. The best options for me have sometimes been purchased on one site, but often I need to look at purchasing particular segments separately. Sometimes I can book on the airline's website, other times I book through Orbitz or Expedia. For me, price is one concern, but also I don't want to connect at an airport in N. America and that's more important to me than finding the cheapest option.

Kayak.com and Google Flights are two of the best tools I've found for comparing options. Rome2rio.com and seat61.com are two great sites to help with getting around within Europe.

For example, last summer I booked a trip to Oslo and home from Copenhagen. I used an open-jaw ticket on BA to get me to Oslo and home from Copenhagen, and then separately booked a one-way on SAS to fly between Oslo and Copenhagen. SAS initially looked more expensive than Norwegian Air Shuttle, but we had two checked bags, so that made SAS the best option for me.

Two years ago, I took Rick's Adriatic tour. The best flight option then was Seattle - Amsterdam with Delta, then to Paris on KLM and finally Paris - Ljubljana on Air France. The route home took me Dubrovnik - Zagreb - London on Croatian Airlines and home to Seattle on Delta. I needed this itinerary on the same ticket because that is the only way you are protected if one of the flights are delayed and you miss a connection. My guess is that because of the Croatian Airines flights, the itinerary was available on Orbitz, but not directly through Delta.com.

Wow, lots of good help. Thanks to all who replied. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, It was Expedia I used in 2014 for a multi-city package and it worked quite well. I wish they would put the option back on their website.

As several people mentioned, the airline websites do seem to offer more options for multiple destinations.
And I took KC's advice and talked to a travel agent. Waiting for their info to come back. I have also taken the Eurostar between Paris and London more than once. It's the only way to travel between those cities, although I forgot to check my travel dates closely the last time and the train was absolutely packed with people going to the London Marathon. I guess it pays to know what major events might be happening during your visit, although it was fun being in London for the Marathon.