Inexpensive flight to Belfast

Watching my best friend of 55 years succumb to it I know cancer waits for no one. In answer to your queries about best carriers et al, start looking at kayak, Skyscanner,hipmunk and airfare watchdog, websites. Neither Raleigh or Belfast are major flight hubs so flying to and from those airports will not be cheap. However, if you might consider flying Raleigh to Boston and then fly Boston to Dublin. Or Raleigh to JFK in D.C. And do the same. Cheaper airfares will be from major airport hubs. See if Aer Lingus still has their sale from Boston to Dublin. Sadly, June is a notoriously difficult time to get cheap airfare. Major travel month and as airlines are in the business to make money, well, you get the picture. If possible be flexible about when you can fly.

I'm curious about the best days to fly, the best carriers, should I choose another month (although time is of the essence), etc as far as saving money.

We are all looking for that information, but unfortunately, there is no longer any rhyme or reason to airfares. For my upcoming trip in May, I found that flights from Newark to Tel Aviv are about the same price as flights from Newark to Paris (1800 miles closer, so it should be a lot cheaper, yes?). So, you just have to put in some dates and see what you get; sometimes, you have the option of "+/- 3 days" so you can see if changing by a few days is cheaper.

You should check prices from any airport that will work for you. So, go to Kayak http://www.kayak.com/flights and select round trip. For departure aiport, put in "RDU,GSO" (without the quotes, with the comma, and no spaces) to pull up Raleigh-Durham and Piedmont Triad airports. For arrival airport, put in "DUB,BFS,BHD" to pull up Dublin, Belfast International, and Belfast City airports. There is a flight from Newark to Belfast International; otherwise, flights from the US go only to Dublin, but that's only a few hours by train from Belfast.

Don't be lured by cheaper flights to London or Manchester; from there, you will have to make your way across water to Belfast, which will involve time, money, and hassle - not worth it for a short visit under stress. The airports I mentioned in the last paragraph will minimize hassle for you.

Kayak will probably bring up a huge list of choices. You can then use the filters on the left side of the page to select things like layover duration, number of stops, etc - very handy to show fewer flights. It's up to you how much "pain" you will put up with to save money. Will you tolerate a 12 hour layover? Will you take a flight involving three connections?

Once you've identified a flight you actually want, it's usually best to book directly with the airline, but for certain fares that's not possible.

Claudia and Harold, thank you so much for your detailed and generous responses. I'm going to be very busy taking your advice over these next few days. I'm sure I will be leaving much, much sooner than June. It's been yrs since I have traveled and things have changed, to say the least. I feel like I'm going overseas for the first time. Again, your advice/help is much appreciated and will be put to good use. Harold, good luck on your upcoming trip. Claudia, thanks again.

A non-conventional suggestion: If you don't already have one, apply for an American Airlines World MasterCard. The annual fee is waived for the first year. Spend $3,000 in the first 3 months and get 40,000 points (with the prudent suggestion of paying off in full every month). The award booking for most round trip RDU to NYC (JFK, EWR & LGA) is only 25,000 even in June (as of now). Book your flight from NYC airports and you won't have to incur the additional cost of RDU to Europe but instead take advantage of the lower cost of booking out of NYC.

A quicker alternative is the US Airways card. It offers 50k miles after you pay the annual fee of $89 and make one charge. As of March 28, those miles will become AA miles. Not sure what Delta or United are up to, but surely have similar offers.

Dublin is around 2 hours from Belfast, so you may have cheaper luck flying into Dublin and taking a train to Belfast.

I'm not necessarily a fan of getting a credit card to make a trip work but sometimes it works out better math-wise when you need to buy an expensive fare and need a few options. Like thepointsguy on facebook; that's where I found my $350 RT from NYC to DUB next week. You never know when what you need will pop up.

PS - in case anyone is wondering, I'm not endorsing any of these sites/cards. Just wanted to offer assistance. :)

Thank you Sewbeachy for the additional info/advice. I'm open to any suggestions thrown my way! I'm definitely going to look into this particular option. Thanks again for the response!! Greatly appreciated!