Flight Munich to Paris

I suspect they are competing with a low cost carrier on the days they list a $66 fare. Thus they jack the fares up on the days without competition. More likely the prices will go up as time goes by and that competitors plane fills up.
You can get a reasonable fare of $169 flying SAS and taking a change in Copenhagen and a 4 hour journey time. Or you can book a fast train with just one change in Stuttgart for as low as 69 euro pp and a journey time of 6 hours and change. That way is also center city to center city, no 1 hour ride to/from the airport and 1.5 to 2 hour check in time. Also you can get the City Night Line train and spend 200 euro plus for 2 in a sleeping compartment for a direct train. You have lots of options. But if you really want that $66 fare, better adjust your itinerary and grab it now. Its unlikely to hang around.

Well, I'm glad I have people on the RS site to help out. Thanks Sam! Ok, so even though I have traveled before, I guess I'm pretty ignorant still. So, an hour or more time to get to the city center? Yikes! Also, I didn't see those train schedules you mentioned. I just put in Munich to Paris into de bahn and that is what I was going off of for a train transportation - which lead to thinking of flying instead. That does give us more options. How did you find that?
Also, if it makes any difference, I'm actually trying to get to either the Loire Valley or Provence from Munich. I was thinking we should fly to Paris (1;20 min- but obviously time to airport etc.) then catch a train in Paris to ?? Is that unreasonable or what would you suggest as the best, cheapest, time efficent way?

In addition to connecting in Stuttgart, there is an early morning direct TGV from Munich to Paris. If you book ASAP (up to 92 days allowed) on bahn.de, you can get a discount fare as low as €39 for either the direct train or with the connection in Stuttgart. What will be your first stop in either the Loire Valley or Provence?

Ok, the train travel time from central Paris or Munich to their respective airports is 40 to 45 minutes, but they are big airports with multiple terminals and still involve a bit of walking to get to the gates.
The train timetables are at www.bahn.de. You can't actually buy tickets until 90 days out, but you can get an idea of prices and schedules by looking 2 months from now on the same day of the week. A lot of trains won't show prices because its an international journey, but a few are integrated with the French railway so they will show an advance purchase price. The night train is run by City Night Line division of Deutsche Bahn, so you can always get prices from them online. I use matrix.itasoftware.com to look at all the flights in a given month, thus I saw your dilemma.

We plan to fly SFO to MUC- rent a car and drive to Austria, Slovenia and then back to Munich for the last three days. From there we wanted to get either to the Loire Valley and Burgundy before returning to Paris for our last 5 days, or getting to Provence for 7 days before returning to Paris for the last 5 days. I assumed going to Paris and then out of Pairs was the best way. Does that make sense? It would be fabulous if someone had a great idea for me....I'm open to anything.

I actaully would prefer a train trip, if I could get it cheap. Only thing is that with a 6 hour ride we are still planning to get to Paris, jump to another train and go either to Loire or Provence- so now we are adding more time. Then, we still need to get a car and drive for 1 hour. I realize it is an all day trip, but it seemed so easy at first, now not so much!
What ideas do you have? I really hope we can make it work and have it be smooth. I hate to change our desires, but don't want to get stuck with high costs or too long a trip.

Susan and Monte, If you've primarily interested in the Loire Valley or Provence with a visit to Paris at the end of your trip, you might also consider flights from Munich to either Marseilles or Nice. That would allow good access to Provence and you could go from there to the Loire Valley by train or rental car and then finally Paris. The budget airline flight schedules for "next summer" may not be loaded yet, so you may have to wait a month or two before you can get any details on what's available or the costs. Use www.whichbudget.com/ to search for flights. If you book early, the costs should be reasonable. Good luck with your planning!

Susan and Monte, One tip to mention - after checking whichbudget to determine which airlines fly direct on the route you want, double check the pricing on the airline website. If you buy tickets as soon as they're available, you'll get the best pricing. Unfortunately, some flights are not exactly in the "budget" category these days. Prices can vary for a variety of reasons - route length, airport landing charges, competition on a particular route, etc. My "tipping point" for choosing air travel over rail is about eight hours, but I'll consider the circumstances in each case so that's not always definite. It's often a balance between the most efficient use of my valuable holiday time vs. cost. Although "budget" air travel may at times cost more than pre-purchased rail tickets, it's sometimes the method I choose because it's the easiest. Good luck!

Ken's idea is very good. Fly from Munich to Marseille (for Provence) or Nice (for the Riviera; it's a few hours from Provence) and pick up the car there. As you said, flying from Munich to Paris and then getting to Provence will take all day. If you're finding very high one-way fares, consider booking a round trip and just discarding the second half. But don't discard the first half, or the airline will cancel the other portion. (In other words, book RT Munich to Marseille to Munich, not Marseille to Munich to Marseille).

Thanks Ken and Harold. Yes, I had already looked at those flight ideas and they were still too $$ or too much time. But, I had not looked for RT, so that is a good idea. I also did not know about whichbudget.com to try. Right now they show the Muc to MRS for $881 and 6.5 hours, so it looks like I'm too far out to find them helpful for now. With a RT using Kayak I did find $262 for a direct flight. Still higher than I was hoping for, but I guess I also have to consider that we would take the train Paris to Loire or Provence, and if we fly there then I've limited that cost.
Thanks for your ideas.

In addition to whichbudget.com, another good search engine is skyscanner.com. It searches both budget airlines and national carriers. It doesn't list any direct flights on budget airlines from Munich to either Marseille or Nice. The German Rail site (bahn.de) shows a route from Munich to Marseille with one connection in Strasbourg rather than Paris. Depart at 06:27 and arrive at 17:18. The second train makes several stops, including Lyon and Avignon, on its way to Marseille.