Vienna-Budapest-Prague

When you say international service, are you talking of flights to and from North America?

If so, only Vienna has flights to North America on Austrian Airlines. Otherwise, you'll have to go through another gateway European city to fly across the Atlantic. But of course it's in the middle of the three--if you draw a straight line.

I would suggest flying into Budapest and flying out of Prague. Our Prague flight last year transferred to another plane in Vienna anyway.

Yes, North America - San Francisco

I've done this trip and flew open jaw into Prague and out of Vienna, with short stopover in Frankfurt, Ger. before heading over the ocean. Funny enough, this year Im flying into Amsterdam and out of Prague, with a short stopover in Vienna before heading home. All of the above airports are quite modern and have fine service for international flying.

Lets say you can save $200 with a RT vs and Open Jaw. Then from that you have to subtract the train costs to get back to point A; maybe $80 each. Then there is the loss of a day. How do you value the loss of a day? But to answer your question, Vienna has direct service from the US. Budapest, and I believe Prague, you have to change planes once you get to Europe. None of this has anything to do with cost necessarily. You will just have to go to one of the sites like Orbitz and just start plugging airports and dates and see what comes up.

I agree with James, the main value of open-jaw is to save time backtracking, and seldom does it cost significantly more than a round trip ticket anyway. I'd suggest playing with a site like kayak.com or skyscanner.com, looking for connections and fares between SF and Prague vs. SF and Budapest. I think you'll find that most options involve a connection through Frankfurt, with lots of flights to and from Budapest and Prague. Vienna is the logical midpoint of your land trip, right?

Also, take a good look at the train times. It's a long ride between Budapest and Vienna, and a longer one between Vienna and Prague. Add in the extra time to collect/drop-off luggage and travel between station and hotel, and you may find that backtracking uses up more sightseeing time than you save by flying in/out of Budapest and Prague.

Chaini, I'm not into long train rides. I would rather fly than spend 7 hours on a train; but Vienna to Budapest is one of the shorter routes between two major cities in Europe. Its only 2 hours 58 minutes. Not sure how you get a long ride out of that? Prague to Vienna is right at my tolerance level at about 4 hours 20 minutes. The travel times help justify a stop in Cesky Krumlov using someone like Bean Shuttle Service; although still not perfect with it being < 3 hours from Prague and < 3.5 hours to Vienna from Cesky Krumlov. Prague straight through to Budapest is way beyond my tolerance level and I would fly it.

EDIT

I fly into "X" and out of Budapest two or three times a year. Generally easy and generally for no more than $200 more than in and out of Budapest. But you have to be careful. There are so many other factors other than price that are important to me (connection times, airports, arrival times, etc) that I don't really know if these open jaws are costing any more than a simple RT.

Since they do all have good flight connections, I consider flying into Prague and home from Budapest to be the clear first choice, not worth debating unless some special circumstance arises.

I think you may be limited with options 'open jaw', into Budapest and out of Prague, for example. Your best choice of carriers would be Lufthansa, Austrian,Swiss and you would certainly need to connect in Vienna, Zurich, Frankfurt or Munich. I would think cost wise look at a round trip direct to Vienna - then book train to Prague, cheap flight to Budapest, train to Vienna.

Having said that it looks like Delta flies to Prague direct from NYC - then book train to Vienna, train to Budapest, cheap flight back to Prague (or Delta may offer Budapest as a connection city).

Hi,

If you're doing open jaw, consider how many times you have to change planes on the return flight. More than once ..forget it. But as long as you can get a flight to Frankfurt or Munich from wherever (Budapest, Vienna, Prague,...all three connect to Frankfurt), then you can connect to SFO since from Munich and Frankfurt there are direct flights to SFO. I know, I did it in 2013 from Munich and in 2015 from Frankfurt. From Munich to SFO you also have the night train option Budapest to Munich.

@ James... i believe you meant to say 2: 48 hrs from Budapest to Vienna...you just hit the adjacent key. But for all practical purposes it may as well be just a shade under 3 hrs.

Swiss direct to Zurich from SFO
Lufthansa direct to Frankfurt from SFO
These two would offer best connections on to Budapest or Prague
The timing of the Munich flight is not great for onward connections.

From the Midwest more or less the trip to either Prague or Budapest has one US connection and one European connection and takes 16 to 19 hours. Again I look for layover times, airports and airlines when making my decision and have never gotten anything close to the cheapest fare

Jim - Not that many flight options (I know the problem). It really sucks to live in the Bay Area, huh? I'm not sure what your concerns are about the airports in those cities. They are all about as easy to get around in, and to get to and from the city centers. If you mean, which has more international flights or more destinations, could you be more specific. It looks to me like you'll have at least 2 connections in one direction if you fly open-jaw. Which airline you fly and which airports you connect through would be more important to me. And I always prefer a European connection so I don't have to clear immigration and customs until SFO.

to James - Well, if Jim isn't flying open jaw, then he's got these options:
Fly Prague, then he has to train from Budapest back to Prague
Fly Vienna, then he has to train back from Prague and back from Budapest
Fly Budapest, then he has to train back to Prague.

Any way you look at it, he has the additional travel time from Prague to Budapest if he doesn't fly open-jaw. Before I answered, I looked at the possibility of a flight between them, but a quick search turned up nothing. The only alternative to an extra night's hotel stay looks to me like spending a day on the train, either all at once or over 2 days. None is close enough to another to make it reasonable to go directly to an airport, so that means changing hotels, and adding the travel time to/from hotel/train etc.

Chani, did you really say this ... ??
"It really sucks to live in the Bay Area, huh? "
We will have to think of a suitable punishment.

I love the Bay Area. I would never live there, but it serves a useful purpose of sucking "a certain type" into one corner of the world.

Relax!!
I'm kidding!!!! (sort of)......

That was soooo tongue-in-cheek. About the only downside is the lack of options on international flights. Oh, I guess I could find a couple others, the high cost of living comes to mind, but if you can afford the Bay Area, it ccan be just this side of paradise. . . . Unless you're trying to fly open-jaw :-)

I just looked up Aptos - poor Jim isn't even in the Bay Area. He's in the even suckier Monterey Bay area!! Poor Jim.

Prague has only two direct flights to and from North America: New York and Atlanta. In the case of Vienna I am aware of direct flights to Toronto, New York, Washington D.C. and probably some more. Don't know about Budapest. In some cases open jaw is even cheaper than RT. Logistically the best would be: Budapest - Vienna - Prague or vice versa.

No direct US to Budapest. Wish there were. I generally end up going through Frankfurt, but I depart from the other end of the earth compared to "The Bay Area".

I would prefer the order Prague, Vienna, Budapest as i always though of Budapest as more relaxing and its how i like to end a trip. And I would stay a little flexible. If one of the towns doesn't agree with you, then move on a day early. To do that you purchase your train tickets in-country when you arrive. We discovered Budapest when we got burned out on Vienna a few days earlier than we had planned.

I don't think it would be silly to book RT out of Prague if you could find a direct flight Budapest to Prague. I don't know of one, but check Ryan and Wizz (I didn't). I wouldn't spend a night on a train just to get back to Prague.

Really off the wall, look at RT costs to Istanbul. Then check one way Istanbul to Prague and one way Budapest to Istanbul. All on Turkish Air. Just might work. Or do it all as a Multi-City ticket. We have found some good prices through Istanbul in the past. Who knows.... might work...... YOu could also check Wizz and Ryand and find a major hub city with connections to both Prague and Budapest then buy a discount ticket to Prague and a discount ticket from Budapest back to the Ryan or Wizz hub.

Or add one more stop to your trip. BA / American fly through London and Delta through Paris. We've layed over for a night or two in each in one direction or the other to break up the long hauls.

ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know a lovely tour guide who will pick you up in Istanbul and drive you the length of Bulgaria and on to Budapest .................

OR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well, sort of ideas right now. When and for how long do you travel??