Cheapest way to fly to Croatia

Hi Mike,

We did a similar method that you describe back in 2008, flying round trip between Chicago and Frankfurt on American Airlines and then had a separately booked ticked via Croatia Airlines from Frankfurt to Dubrovnik, Zagreb to Frankfurt. We did have a little issue, however, in that American Airlines changed our return flight from Frankfurt to Chicago to a flight that was several hours earlier than the original one, making it impossible for us to get from Zagreb to Frankfurt on time to catch the transatlantic flight. Neither airline was responsible, either, as they were two totally separate bookings.

After much ado, we were able to change our itinerary a little bit and extend the trip by a day. American changed their portion of the flight to the next day at no cost but we did have to pay a little extra to Croatia Air for the change. This is just something you have to be aware of when doing it this way. Travel insurance might be a good idea for this very thing, too (assuming it would cover such instances).

Long story short, it's doable but know the risks and if at all possible, schedule flights with long layovers to help pad yourself should a flight be delayed. Staying in Paris either coming or going (or both!) from the US is a great idea.

By the way, we booked our Croatia Airlines tickets through Expedia for the trip, as they had significantly lower prices than those on the Croatia Airlines website. May have been an anomaly, but worth checking out.

Good luck!

I will echo Angela's response. When you book a main line carrier then a budget, you are responsible for any delays/cancellations. As such, you need to plan more of a buffer. Using Paris (or other city) as a stop is great in that you can plan a night(s) between flights, giving you time to handle nearly any issue.

You could also fly open jaw within western Europe, picking an arrival city and a departure city that works with budget airline itineraries (Fly to Paris, do a couple nights, on to Croatia, Fly to Dublin, again a couple nights, then back to the US)

I would start the process by looking at budget airline schedules (try Whichbudget.com) picking what cities and flight days work, then with a few options, start pricing your TransAtlantic flight.

I did find that for Croatia, budgets may only fly a route twice a week, complicating things since you just cannot fly a leg on the day you want or to where you want. This may be less of an issue for a month in Croatia, we were looking at maybe a week more or less.

If you want a stopover in Paris on the way back, try Air France. You can sometimes do stopovers for free. You may have to book over the phone--I'm not sure if you can do this on the website. They partner with Croatia Air so you should have no problems flying into or out of Zagreb or Dubrovnik.

You should also find out if there IS any other airline that will take you directly Croatia-Paris-Chicago. There might not be, and let's say you end up on Lufthansa. You'd have to go Croatia-Frankfurt (or another hub in Germany), then get another flight to Paris (for more $$) just for 2 days, then probably back to Germany, then home to Chicago. Sounds like a pain to me.

You flight is over a year away, so you won't be able to get prices for it yet. But you can get an idea of which is cheaper--booking all the way through a major carrier, or booking two separate carriers as you suggested--by pretending to book for this summer or fall. Just play around with websites and see what comes up. You'll also figure out which flights are most convenient, direct, etc, then you can keep an eye on these flights. I am looking at flying Seattle-Paris-Zagreb next spring, so I keep an eye on the Air France flights (and get the emails) so I can be ready to buy when I see a good fare.