Air travel to Eastern Europe

Prague is the northernmost, Budapest is the southernmost and Vienna is in between the two.
Vienna is also likely to have the most (and cheapest) flights from the US, since it's the most important airport of the three.
If you intend to fly to Zagreb (Croatia) after your tour, Vienna is also the only airport that has direct connections with Zagreb (with Austrian Airlines and Croatian Airlines).
If that is your wish, then you should end your tour in Vienna and fly from there.
If you intend to drive to Croatia, Budapest is closer (slightly), therefore you should leave Budapest for last and drive to Croatia from there (and visit the lake Balaton along the way).

I would do a search on Kayak and see what the cheapest options are with a multi-city (open Jaw), looking at the various combinations. Chances are from Calif. Lufthansa is your best bet (Austrian Airlines is also part of Lufthansa).

Roberto, Thank you for the prompt and helpful reply.

I forgot to mention that if you rent a car it's a good idea to return it in the same country where you rent it. To drop a car off in a different country often carries stiff drop off fees (in the hundreds of euros).
If you rent in Austria also inquire into the possibility of driving into other Eastern European countries. Some companies restrict that option because of rampant auto theft in certain Eastern European countries.

If your mode of transport between the cities is not a rental car, but bus and/or train (which I recommend), then no problem.

For reaching Croatia from either Vienna or Budapest with ground public transportation (train or bus), inquire also in the "To the East" section of this helpline. I'm not an expert of public transportation options in Eastern Europe, but in that section of the helpline there are several frequent travelers to East Europe who can help.

I work in a business where we look at “Best Value” vs. cheapest; so my mind is sort of wired that way. I would say to fly into Prague, then train to Vienna. That much is a no-brainer tourist route. From Vienna it depends on where and what you plan on doing in Croatia and how flexible your schedule is. It might work well for you to take advantage of the flights from Vienna to Croatia and then return to Vienna afterwards for another day or two and then train down to Budapest from which you can depart to the US. This might possibly make the best use of time. Best Value is getting the most for your buck. Cheap is saving bucks but seeing less per dollar. Oh on one-way flights always check the difference in cost one-way vs. a return ticket. Sometimes the results are surprising. Especially on Austrian Air.

Another option would be to take the train down to Budapest after Vienna. Again, this is a no-brainer well-worn tourist route. After about a week in Budapest you can either fly on to Croatia (most likely changing in Vienna or I think Munich) or you can take the train to Zagreb which isn’t a bad journey. When deciding look at the flight time, then add a couple of hours in front and an hour at the end and see if it is longer or shorter than the train time plus one hour. Then you return home from Croatia.

When you plan the Budapest part of the trip let me know. It’s sort of a specialty of mine.

Check where and when Wizz Air and other discount airlines fly in/out of Croatia (or Ljubljana) and your other itinerary points (Vienna, Prague, Budapest). Vienna is the best point connected by train, IMO, to get down into Croatia (Zagreb, Opatija-matulji, Rijeka). Keep your car rental to one country, i.e. Croatia.

Budapest is often the cheapest airport to fly into from N.A.. All airports in Croatia tend to result in higher airfares when included in an open-jaw.

Budapest and Vienna are close by - a quick train trip. Prague is the furthest away. You may want to examine scenarios where you may split Budapest/Vienna and Prague at opposite ends of your trip, keeping Croatia as the middle part. This sounds confusing, but may be quite possible if the right cheap flight exists for your timing.

Skyscanner.net is your best tool to help you connect the cheap-flight-dots. The flight connection that I would concentrate on solving first would be a Prague-Croatia or Croatia-Prague flight. That one may be your money and time saver. Bizarre... but: fly into Budapest, train to Vienna, train to Croatia, cross fingers for a cheap Dubrovnik-Prague flight, fly home from Prague.

Thank you Roberto, James and Dianne. I think I have enough to get started.

I would fly WizzAir if everything was perfect. But I say this because I travel sort of lose and can accommodate change. Agout 4 years ago I had a flight booked from Varna to Budapest on WizzAir. About 24 hours before the flight I got an email with notice of a change of "schedule". Yes the time changed by about an hour, but so did the departing city!!! Since when is changing departing cities and schedule change? Crazy. We ended up on Bulgarian Air with no refund from Wizzair.

We go to "Eastern" Europe (really its Central Europe folks) often and one trick we have done is to spend a few days in London on the way. We have actually gotten better prices booking flights to London on one airline and then booking a return trip London/Budapest on another airline. We don't have to but we hang out in London for a day or two once we went southwest of London and did some fly fishing before continuing on to Budapest.

The options are limitless, which makes it hard to choose sometimes. My minimum is 1 hour layover on outbound domestic flights. 1.5 hour minimum layover on outbound and return European connections and international arrivals in the US (with Global Entry or 2.5 hours without Global Entry).

Where in Croatia are you meeting your friends, and where will your Croatia leg end?

Sorry for the delay. It's been hectic and plans are changing. We,now plan to meet in Ljubljana and end up in Dubrovnik in two weeks.

I realize I'm getting into this in middle of a discussion - but am hoping you can help. My husband and I are want to go to Dubrovnik. We fly standby (retired airline people), which is a challenge of it's own. As far as I can tell we can get to Zagreb without too much trouble famous last words), but I am not sure how to get to Dubrovnik. There doesn't appear to be a train so is renting a car viable and/or safe? I've heard various stories on the safety issue?

Bobby

Trains don't go to Dubrovnik. Cars, safe and viable, of course, why wouldn't they be? A boat would be an interesting alternative.