Cheapest One Way Flight from Amsterdam to Madrid

http://www.whichbudget.net/

You can go to Whichbudget.com and play around...but a quick look did not show any budgets flying that route. This is expected, since both airports are major international airports, and budgets usually fly from domestic or remote airports. You could price out KLM or Iberia, they may not be too bad. You can also try hitting some of the budget sites. For example, Ryanair does fly from Eindhoven, Netherlands to Madrid; or from Frankfurt-Hahn to Madrid...so maybe a short trip from Amsterdam (plus you get to ditch the kids for maybe a night) would get you to a cheap flight. Typically budget flights are booked best as early as you can stand it. If you wait until a couple weeks before you will pay close to regular airlines. Also review and heed any baggage restrictions...or you might be paying more for your bag to get there than for you to get there.

Unfortunately, Amsterdam (for reasons unknown to me) is very poorly served by discount airlines. You can take the Eindhoven-Madrid Ryanair suggestion, but watch the luggage and check-in restrictions. Otherwise, you'll likely have to fly thru London. You could book easyjet to London Luton and then on to Madrid. But these discount airlines consider those two separate flights.....if you miss that second flight, they won't route you through. A similar route might be clickair or vueling Amsterdam-Barcelona, then Barcelona-Madrid....but the same caution would apply. You might be able to get a flight via on British Airways for about $240 pp, which would guarantee your connection. Or you may ask United if they can book you thru to Madrid, and you pay the difference.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. How about Brussels? We are also visiting Bruges/Brussels, so we could fly there instead, if getting from Brussels to Madrid would be cheaper.

One thing I like to do when searching which airports fly direct to another airport is go to the Wikipedia page for the airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiphol_Airport
It looks like Iberia and KLM fly between Amsterdam and Madrid. They don't appear to be cheap, however.

You can check with the three main sources for discount airlines in Europe....www.whichbudget.com, flylc.com, and skyscanner.net. In all cases, I locate the airline(s) flying the routes, but I go to the airlines' websites to book, where I can be sure of all the various fare, check-in and baggage regulations and limitations. If you are firm in your plans, a quick look finds Brussels airlines doing BRU-MAD for 1 Euro (50 Euro once all fees are added in).

Actually, Ryanair does fly out of Brussels to Madrid, but as is typical with Ryanair, "Brussels" is actually Charleroi (code CRL), which is about 35 miles south of Brussels, not the main International airport (code BRU). So if you will be going through Brussels, that would be an option.

That's why I didn't mention Ryanair.....since the bus fare to get there would make it more expensive that the Brussels Airlines flight out of BRU....plus the hour or so extra to get out there.

If Brussels is a possibility take a look at www.brusselsairlines.com I don't know your dates but when I put in June 10 I found a flight for E49.99 including all taxes and charges.

Terry - the problem could be because there is no Star alliance carrier that flies between AMS and MAD - I checked and it doesn't seem like Spanair flies that route. Hence, you will need to potentially travel through either MUC, FRA, VIE or ZRH to get to MAD. This may be causing it to exceed the Maximum Permitted Mileage (MPM) that UA has on its tickets.

However, have you followed the age old rule of calling back and talking to another agent. The answer you get may surprise you.

Would also love to know your exact route and stopover points - it seems to me that you should be able to ticket this with UA and that potentially you just got a not so good agent.

Arnold, I called back and got a better solution! First, as other suggested, I tried Brussels (since we were making a round trip there anyway and it only caused us to rearrange our schedule a bit). This agent was able to get us from Brussels to Madrid on the same UA ticket, somehow not exceeding the mileage limit. AND...whereas the other agent had my husband flying home 2 days before me, this one was magically able to get us on the same flight home together. You're absolutley right...it pays to keep calling back and trying other agents. (Now I need to keep trying to get the 3 kids home from Portland to Bend on American ff miles...but that's another story! (The challenges of cheap travel..) Thanks EVERYONE for all of your help. You're all the greatest!