Airfare, don't care which Northern/Central European destination

Any of the airline travel sites will do that. Just plug in the different destinations. Start with Kayak. Or any I missing something in the question??

We have flown on Delta to each of those locations. It is much easier getting into the city from the airport in either Amsterdam or Brussels.

Thanks posters for the good replies. We were trying to find a way to search for the best fare regardless of city. We've done the hunting but thought we might be missing great deals. We can only search by the cities we know. So, the idea was to find a search function that would let us select a region to fly in to and give us the ideal fare given our flexibility.

Another good tool is this website:

http://www.itasoftware.com/

Choose search airfares, then you can continue as a guest.

For your "to" airport (use, say AMS) and then use the "any airport within" function. You can do a radius search up to 300 miles.

You can not book from here, but take the flight info, go to the carrier's website, then book away.

This is what may travel agents use to find fares.

Good luck!

Have a look at icelandair.com....

I like KAYAK and simply use the go back link in the upper left corner to change cities or dates, etc. It only takes about 10 seconds to get new results for a new city. check back every day until you see something you like.

I know you want non-stop, but IcelandAir will get you there from Minneapolis for around $100 less (on average) and it only takes about an hour longer to switch planes in Iceland (plus it's fun to land in Iceland). They offer small discounts for children too, if you have any. Most airlines don't.

I’ve flown Icelandair before, and they’re great. I found that their fares, however, weren’t as attractive or competitive in 2009 as they had been in previous years. They’re on my short list of preferred carriers, as MSP is a quick drive from DSM, so I always include them when I’m researching fares. One big benefit is that you can stay in Reykjavik (or anywhere in Iceland) for up to a week on the way over or back with no extra fare. You may already know that they don’t fly from MSP in winter, and their summer timetable won’t be online for a few more weeks – you need to call them for fare info. Also, they recently updated their cabins with top of the line seating, entertainment system, etc. Check it out.

I have been shopping Iceland Air, we want to do an Iceland stopover but the prices are significantly higher than other carriers. I'll continue to check them until I buy. Been using Kayak to great affect. Also some of the other suggestions here have been very helpful. Thanks!

Michael,

IcelandAir DOES fly from MSP in winter (like right now) and summer fares have been available for months. We bought ours in mid-October, for June, 2010. Those same tickets are now $250 more/person so I'm feelin' pretty proud of myself :)

One other place to look is on Kayak. Choose the 'More' button and then select 'Buzz'. You will be able to see the cheapest fare found by other travelers from MSP to all major destinations in Europe.

Randy: I think you’re mistaken. If you call the airline, you'll find that Icelandair does not fly from or to MSP in winter. In fact, MSP is excluded in their current winter timetable, which covers the period 25 October through 27 March. As it is each year, MSP will be included in their summer timetable, which will be published within a few weeks. Summer fares should be available via phone or online now. Sounds like you got a great fare for this summer…that’s awesome! Happy travels. BTW, I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong...let me know what they say if you call them.

I just did a quick search on the Icelandair web site and I can book a ticket now for a RT tirip MSP to Copenhagen in February. I didn't bother to check other cities. Maybe flight frequency is reduced to certain days per week. I'm not sure. Maybe some flights in the next few days are full (the planes are always full when we fly). But I don't think there is a single week year-round that they don't have flights from MSP to their top European destinations.

They do add summer only cities in Europe, like Munich and Berlin, and a couple of others.

For winter schedules, I bet they’re using a codeshare flight (like NWA) from MSP to a bigger hub, such as New York. From there, it’s Icelandair to Reykjavik for connections to the continent.