Flights from US for tour starting in Salzburg, Austria

jrmattingly, what are the dates you're looking at, and what are you seeing for fares? Are you looking at open-jaw (multi-city) fares or trying to book two one-way fares? Or are you looking to fly into Salzburg (small airport, big fares)? I think most people would want to book an open-jaw BNA (or ATL) to Munich and return from Geneva.

Flying into Munich is probably cheaper and shorter from the US. From Munich airport to Salzburg is under 2.5 hours and some trains on that route (not RailJet) accept the cheap Bavaria/Bayern regional day ticket.

We were looking at various dates from this year to next. Not using any restrictions on # of stops. 1 way 1 person economy ~$3k to anywhere near Salzburg, Austria. Trying to stick with the major carriers.
Thanks

You do not want to be looking for one-way fares, which will almost always be very expensive.
Multi-city fares, as mentioned above, should be much lower, though sometimes RT and taking the train for one end works well in Europe.

That does seem high. A quick random fall date search just now was showing roundtrip flights on numerous airlines from both Atlanta (nonstop) and Nashville (connecting) to Munich (for example) in the $1000-$1200 range. I'm finding multi-city (open jaw) Atlanta-Munich and Geneva-Atlanta in the $1200-$1300 range for multiple airlines next spring.

Any chance you were searching during Oktoberfest? Prices jumped to $2k and $3K during that window.

As noted by others, Salzburg is a small and expensive airport only 2-3 hours away from Munich airport which is a major hub (and very modern facilities) We have flown MUC-SFO nonstop on United/ Lufthansa and have taken the train Munich-Salzburg many times.
Book your flights as multi-city, also known as open-jaw (in to Munich, out of someplace else) rather than one-way + one-way to get better prices.

Thanks. Using multi-city helps. Thought we would just get an idea of the flights. The price difference is crazy.

It's worth checking returns from Zurich as well as from Geneva. From my origin Zurich is a relatively cheap destination and Geneva is much more costly. It may be different for you, of course, butmit wom't hurt to look.

Welcome to the travel forum.

Airfare is very variable and even a single day can change the price drastically. Play with the price graph in google flights which shows prices for alternate dates for round trip flights. It also allows multiple destinations so you can search say Munich and Innsbruck in one search. Plus it’s fast.

And you can set up alerts to be notified when your route changes price. This works for multicity as well as round trip flights. Watching airfare can help you catch sales and to feel confident with the price you finally commit to.

Enjoy the planning and the trip!

Had not thought of Zurich, thanks

I have found fares for a lot less money if I am willing to drive to an airport a few hours from home.

In my case, it's almost a necessity because I live in Upstate NY and there are no good options for international flights that aren't expensive -- especially as my preference is always to fly nonstop. In the past I've driven and flown out of Philadelphia and Newark...the cost savings per ticket (plus the fact that I could get direct flights both ways) more than made up for the time spent driving and the cost of parking. On our last two trips to Europe we've flown out of Toronto, which we absolutely love. The cost savings is significant, too. I don't think that would make much sense for you....but you might explore round trip to/fr Toronto and then direct flights from Toronto. Last summer we flew Austrian Air non stop from Toronto to Vienna (I really liked the Vienna airport, because it's smallish and easy to navigate). We were scheduled to fly Luftansa, a partner airline to Austrian, on the return trip from Venice to Toronto, but that flight ended up cancelled and we were rebooked on a direct flight on their country cousin airline, Air Canada Rouge. I would definitely fly Austrian Air again....I didn't enjoy Air Canada Rouge and their bare bones service at all.

I'm not sure how far you are from Atlanta, but you might see what flights Delta and its partners has on your open jaw itinerary. Our friends flew KLM thru Amsterdam to Vienna, and returned KLM from Venice through Amsterdam. If you have to change planes in Europe, Amsterdam is one of the more pleasant airports in which to do so.

Thanks. Using multi-city helps. Thought we would just get an idea of the flights. The price difference is crazy.

The airlines sell as many as 20 different ticket types for an economy/main cabin, and each ticket type has its own set of rules that must be followed in order to qualify for a specific type. Example- On what the airlines call 'deep discount economy' tickets, it's common for there to still be a fare construction rule for a Saturday night stayover to qualify for that price on transatlantic routes, (they assume business flyers don't want to be away from their families during down time on a weekend) and the multi-city ticket will tick the Saturday night requirement for that ticket type while the one way ticket does not, pushing you into tickets priced to business travelers spending more of Other People's Money than their own

If you're curious about the full set of rules for a given ticket type you're looking at, I think ITA Matrix still makes it fairly easy to see that metadata

We looked at flying out of Atlanta. A lot of flights from Nashville first fly to Atlanta and running (espeically in the heat and humidity) through Atlanta airport to change flights is not fun. It is almost worth it to drive the 4+ hours to Atlanta. Thanks

A lot of flights from Nashville first fly to Atlanta and running
(espeically in the heat and humidity) through Atlanta airport to
change flights is not fun. It is almost worth it to drive the 4+ hours
to Atlanta.

I live about 3 hours from ATL. I find driving to Atlanta miserable; driving back after a trans-Atlantic flight is worse. I often fly through ATL from my local airport (GSP, Greenville-Spartanburg, SC) and never run through ATL to catch flights. I just give myself plenty of time between flights. Honestly, I don't find airfares out of ATL much cheaper than what I find out of GSP. Patience and daily price checking has delivered prices as low as $500 r/t (Zurich) with random, unannounced fare sales.