Help sifting through options for flights US to Europe

If we had a method, we would all be using it. A lot depends on when you are traveling, both time of year, and how long from now. September is really only two months away. About the best you can do is set up alerts at all of the travel sites so that you can start watching fares. Once you watch them for awhile and see what a "usual" fare is, you will recognize a deal when you see one. But you have to be prepared to jump when you do see one - they sell out fast. There's no magic system.

Any chance you could push out your trip by a bit? Fares typically drop sometime in September, but IIRC that's usually in the second half of the month. Still a great time to go, if you can swing it, probably would be able to nail a lower fare.

I just tried Kayak for Dulles to CDG Sept 10/Oct 1 . $997 Air France / KLM Royal Dutch IAD 4:40p ?CDG 6:00a 7h 20m nonstop
AF IAD 4:40p CDG 6:00aCDG 9:35a ?IAD 3:00p 11h 25m 1 stop (AMS) Or Air France for $1000 nonstops.

It's hard to know what you have and haven't searched. I usually start at Kayak and check several days before and after my target date to see if I can get significant savings, plus other airports - but it sounds like that's what you have done so far. I also try the trip both directions to see if it changes the airfare, but you may have done that too. You have some time to shop. Set up some price alerts and watch them. If a good deal comes up, jump on it - they can go quickly.

DC will offer the most competition and it's shorter than Chicago to Europe. If DC is an option, I'd concentrate on it for taking off.
Since you want open jaw, it may be a little more complicated getting price alerts. You should sign up for the airline websites, so you get first notification of sales.

Jon, I hit momondo.com Showing a Atlanta to Madrid on 10 Sept, and a London, Gatwick back to Atlanta on 2 Oct for
$977.00 total on U.S.Airways. Both are one-stoppers under 13 hours duration. Also, right now, Travelocity has some pretty good promotional discounts if you book U.S. Airways on a webfare through them. Problem is, you are too close to the travel dates. Needed to have started looking for fares about a hundred days out. Can you push to Oct? Good Luck

Remember, too, you have to add in the cost of getting to DC or Chicago or Atlanta. Is there a reason you couldn't go from somewhere closer to Cincy?

I paid $1,300 for a flight from St. Louis - Dulles - CDG and out of London - Chicago - St. Louis. It was more than what I wanted, but circumstances dictated that that price was right. By "gateway city", do you mean flying into a city in Europe that isn't on your list to visit, but is cheaper to fly into than a city on your list? If you can fly into and out of the same airport (i.e. fly into London, then take an intra-Europe flight to Paris, for example), you might be okay. But if you miss the flight to Paris because your flight to London was late, you'll probably have to pay full price for another ticket. Look at the fine print of European budget airlines very carefully. I understand your desire to save money, but sometimes it's best to bite the bullet and pay the "new normal" fare, and fly direct.

Yes, why do you want to fly out of a different city than Cincinnati? Delta flies direct to Paris from CVG. If you're doing a multi city, look at the departure times from the European cities. You want to be sure you can easily get to the departure airport at that time of the morning. For example, the Delta/Air France flight from CDG to CVG leaves at about 10:30, so that's easy.

Jon, You might save a couple hundred dollars flying in/out of different cities, but you will also likely spend the "savings" getting to/from the places you really want to visit. Get on Kayak.com and set up an alert on each of the cities you are interested in visiting. If the price drops on any of them check the fares. For flights out of DC, I usually find the lowest prices are to London probably due to the fact that there are 7 non-stop flights a day there on 3 different carriers. Right now, I see R/T non-stop from IAD to LHR for $834 during your dates. However, once you add in the cost of flying to/from London plus the price of staying in London your total cost would probably creep up to $1100.

If you are finding open jaw tickets for $1,100 for September, you're getting a decent deal. In general, I think you're being slightly optimistic about being able to get such specific flights. Open jaw and direct flights and less than $1.1k and flying into non-hub airports? That's a pretty tall order. I'm seeing:
$921: KF: IAD-KEF, KF: KEF-AMS, 9/9, Return, KF: AMS or CDG-KEF, KF: KEF-IAD, 9/29 $1,000: DL: IAD-CDG, 9/9, Return, KL: PRG-AMS, KL: AMS-ORD, 10/3. (I think this last one would be best for you) $1,021: AF: IAD-CDG, AF: CDG-BUD, 9/9, Return, AF: CDG-IAD, 10/1.