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How to plan flights for a circular trip?

Posted by on

I'd like to take a tour of Copenhagen, Sweden, and Iceland, to see parts of Sweden that I haven't seen on two previous trips to Stockholm.

My preference would be to fly out of Nashville, TN (BNA) to Copenhagen, spend a few days there, take trains up the western edge of Sweden to end up in Gothenberg, and then fly back by way of Iceland. I know IcelandAir offers an extended layover where you can spend several days in Iceland between your arrival and departure at no additional cost.

What I don't know is how to go about making these kinds of purchases where my arrival point in Europe is not the same as my departure point, limiting my return to IcelandAir, and ending up on airlines that service all the appropriate destinations.

Obviously budget is an issue. I can't justify spending $1,000 each on three one-way tickets when I've flown from Atlanta to Stockholm, through Iceland, on AirCanada and IcelandAir for less than $1,000 round trip. But when I start adding in the quirks of the extended layover and the different arrival and departure cities, I'm flummoxed on how to perform my searches, or what the secrets are for making it all work.

I've tried IcelandAir's search for flights from Nashville but they say no such creature exists (because IcelandAir itself doesn't fly out of Nashville, though AirCanada does, and I know that those two airlines have cooperated before for me out of Atlanta). So, I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to start.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for how to go about looking at my alternatives? I've got a year before I'm expecting to take this trip, but want to start looking at what kinds of things are likely to be available.

Thanks!

Posted by
2707 posts

First off, a year out you may not find flights. Try, but if not, use dummy dates a little sooner to get an idea. What you are booking is called an open jaw flight-arriving one place, departing another. Use a search engine such as Kayak or Google Flights and choose multi city. Don't try for specific airlines, let the search engine find you the cheapest combination. Be aware of layovers as sometimes the cheapest flights involve long layovers that don't give you enough time to see anything except the inside of an airport.

Posted by
20087 posts

I use https://matrix.itasoftware.com/
Use the Multi-City tab to plot out the flights. I also select the "+/- 2 day function to see if it is cheaper to fly certain days.
The results will point to what is possible, cost, and who to book with.

Posted by
2707 posts

This ITA software does not link you to the booking sites. You have to seek out the airline then try to recreate the recommended booking. I have tried and often find that cumbersome and difficult Google Flights and Kayak allow you to go directly to booking with one click. And, to the OP, book with the airline directly if at all possible.

Posted by
2768 posts

What you may want is to make your flights to/from home on one ticket using multi-city. That is buy a ticket for Nashville to Copehagen and on the same ticket Iceland to Nashville. The SEPARATELY buy your Sweden to Iceland ticket, spend time in Iceland, then fly home using the return ticket.

I chose random dates in May on kayak.com for Nashville/Copenhagen and Reyjakvik/Nashville and some flights around $1100 round-trip showed up. That gets you to/from Europe.

You need to choose MULTI-CITY search, not one-way. 2 one way tickets are absurd, but a multi-city is reasonable.

Then you need to get from Gothenberg to REK. I don't know the route, but checking skyskanner will tell you what low cost airlines fly it. I did dummy dates on kayak (one way this time!) and saw flights for $100, you can probably do better with budget airlines in the region.

So using what I saw - $1100 to/from home-Europe then $100 GOT to REK - $1200 for flights isn't too bad.

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