Flights to Germany from the States

That seems awful high, and you have to go to JFK. How about get to Philly for Lufthansa to Frankfurt, or Newark for Lufthansa to Frankfurt or Dusseldorf, and then to Berlin from there? Seriously, for the two of us together we have paid less than $2500 in the last year three different times.

I will run the numbers on the other options. The plans so far are to start in Berlin and end up in cologne. But that could change if we find a better flight price.

Did you pick seats with extra leg room?

Also that price is for two tickets.. lol I should have mentioned that..

try skyscanner.com or kayak - they tend to have the best flights and usually around 2 stops, extra stops arent ideal but it might save you $1500.

That is for seats with extra legroom, not standard coach.

We've been finding Lufthansa/United prices from Newark, NJ r/t Munich to be about $1,600 per person for the end of May. On Icelandair we found similar flight times from Newark, NJ r/t Munich, with a brief stop in Iceland, to be about $900 per person.

Paul

You can't do too much research on too many sites. Keep digging.

Air Berlin flies nonstop from Duesseldorf to JFK. DUS is right on the mainline German rail network with a short tram connecting to the terminal, so I would look at that one for the return. Cologne/Bonn would involve a connecting flight.

It will cost a bit more, but a code share flight from PIT to JFK is in order.

Since you'll have a car, I think driving back to Frankfurt would be the way to go, since it's in Germany. The other option would be to drop the car in Cologne and train to either Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Cologne airport seems like it is the element that really drives up the flight times.

Since you're interested in extra legroom options, check out Delta flying back from either Amsterdam or Frankfurt instead of Cologne. Delta runs a non-stop 757 to Paris from Pittsburgh and then you connect to anywhere in Europe on AirFrance from there (except Cologne apparently). You could reserve economy for around $1450 and then upgrade the seats to "Comfort+".

You'd buy the economy tickets for Delta first and then select the Comfort+ seats in the manage my booking website. The Comfort+ seat upgrade for two people on Seattle-Amsterdam runs around $500 total roundtrip...maybe it's less on the PIttsburg-Paris route since it's 2 hrs shorter? The benefit of the Pittsburg-Paris flight is no customs at a busy USA airport. The downside is that it's on a 757, so it's not as spacious as a bigger wide-body jet.

Another option would be American Airlines: American to Chicago and Air Berlin on to Berlin. Home from Frankfurt to Philadelphia and on to Pittsburg both on American. I'm not sure about the extra legroom options on those transatlantic options since I haven't flown AA or Air Berlin to Europe myself.

If you are willing to get to JFK check out Norwegian Air. Their prices for regular economy are dirt cheap, and their "premium" class about the same cost as regular economy on many of the major airlines. Big bonus is that they fly only the Dreamliner.

If you're ending in Cologne, a train from there to Duesseldorf for a flight would be a good option.

Have you considered flying out of Toronto? It "appears" that prices are lower from there.

Check Air Canada or Icelandic Air. Both fly into Frankfurt and their flights can be a lot cheaper.

sfisher, to reply to your immediate question to me about comfort, we have always flown regular standard economy. That has not been an issue for us on their Airbus 340s, they have 32" seat-pitch and 2-4-2 seating, and Lufthansa service is excellent. I can't comment on their 747s.
$1250/ticket is within reason. For me the issue would be dealing with JFK in some fashion, either by the dreaded state-side connection outbound, or by arriving there by car. We are just outside Philly, so we put up with the shortage of options at Philly International because it is here. We will fly out of Newark on a good deal, as we can have our kids drive us there, but we return to Philly when we do that. The hassle of dealing with getting to and using JFK eliminates it for us. Our last trip was Istanbul and Budapest was via Lufthansa because we can't get Turkish Air here, although we loved the mid trip transfer to Istanbul that was a separate ticket on TA and we would love to fly them long-haul.