Trip to Spain in June-price of airline tickets

You're pricing some tough routing. I suppose you're already resigned to two stops on both the inbound and the outbound flights. I see AerLingus through Chicago and Dublin pricing out at about 1346 on Kayak but there's long layovers. You're flying in peak season...prices go up mid-May and stay up through the summer, typically. I remember the summer of 2009. Fares were great. I got nonstop Seattle to Amsterdam tickets for under $900 each. I've never found that deal again...I just looked at Seattle to Amsterdam nonstop for June and a ticket is over $1700.

Unfortunately, airlines prices in 2009 have nothing to do with airline prices today. Since then, airlines have gotten much better at cutting capacity and raising fares.

Also, you're going at a peak time. I just went on Kayak and priced Chicago to Madrid from June 8 to June 22, 2016 (dates and cities chosen at random, just to get an idea of a more "competitive" route at the same time) and found:

$1064 on Turkish Air with very long layovers (over 20 hours in IST on the way over!). Turkish Air is actually very nice, but unless you want to see some of Istanbul, or are desperate to save money, this is not the way to go.
$1254 on "Finnair" (actually British Air, Iberia, and FlyBe) with two stops on the way over, but nonstop on the way back. The two stops makes this a long way to go (18 hours total from Chicago to Madrid).
$1423 on "British Air" (American Air nonstop on the way over, Iberia and Aer Lingus on the way back) - a good option.
$1595 on "Finnair" (actually nonstop both ways on Iberia) - the cheapest nonstop flights.

So, it looks like going from the midwest US to Spain, you can go cheaper, if you're willing to have long layovers or more of them. Otherwise, it's not going to be much cheaper, so you might as well go to and from where you want to be. As I said in my first paragraph, it simply costs more to fly to Europe than it used to.

Flying Miami to Barcelona at end of May for $800 with Air Europa. Look it up. Don't know if they fly from Lexington. Here's website: www.aireuropa.com/Flights

I checked Google flights and prices for mid-June are $1600 from many airports in your area. If you look at Atlanta, Miami and JFK, the price drops to $741 from JFK to Santiago de Campostela. You can search multiple airports on Google flights to get better price options. Here is the specific search that i used.

https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=LEX,CVG,MIA,ATL,JFK;t=SCQ,4NQ,LCG,VGO,OPO;d=2016-06-07;r=2016-06-17

I also see flights from Lexington to JFK for less than $300.

Be careful if you're thinking of buying separate domestic and international flights to save money. Remember that if you're on two tickets and the first flight is late enough that you miss the connection, you're going to have to buy a replacement ticket at the last-minute fare. That will be exorbitant. And others have said if you miss an outbound trans-Atlantic flight in this situation, the return is automatically canceled.

Yes, in 2010 we flew round trip to Duesseldorf for $700 each, its close to double that now. If it is any consolation, a person in Santiago de Compostela wanting to visit Lexington would probably pay about $1000. You are paying more because the airline companies operating in the United States have determined that you have the money and they want it.

You may have to get creative. A weekend visit to NYC before and after the trip may do it, but that will cost as well. I see flights from Toronto to Santiago de Compostela for $885 Canadian, less than $700 US. Catch a Blue Jays game and then off to Spain.

Well, thanks for all the replies, but it's too late. Bought the tickets last month. I looked at Cincinnati and Louisville but there wasn't much difference from Lexington. I'd rather have a shorter drive home than 1-3 hours. Getting excited about the trip!