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Is it possible to book multi-city trip on Delta with overnight connection at CDG

We are booked on the Eastern France trip May 27-June 10, 2023. We're flying on May 25 and June 11.

Our home airport is Boston so Delta and Air France are the best options for a non-stop flight to Paris. Delta Comfort+ looks like the best choice for my arthritic knees. Another benefit if I am reading correctly is you can cancel your flights anytime before day of departure and bank the entire amount as a credit for 2 years. In this age of COVID that is a consideration.

The flight back to Boston leaves CDG at 11:20am which means we'd have to take a 6:20 am flight from MRS. I would really prefer not to do that. Ideally we'd take an early evening flight to CDG the night before the flight home and stay at a CDG airport hotel.

The Delta site isn't letting me book it this way. "Oh no! We're sorry, but we are unable to process this request online" I called Delta and there is a long wait - if you're not traveling today or tomorrow call back. I've searched this forum and haven't found anything.

Adding an extra night to the last tour hotel Hôtel Aquabella & Spa in Aix-in-Provence is 295€ which doesn't seem worth it for what would have to be an extremely early departure. Buses aren't running that early so we'd have to take a taxi to the airport.

Other options I've thought of are:
stay at an MRS airport hotel the night before the early flight
buy BOS-CDG roundtrip tickets and separate tickets for MRS-CDG (about 50€ each)
TGV back to CDG (would add to total cost and pre-purchased tickets are non-refundable)

Posted by
2267 posts

If Delta’s system isn’t offering overnight layovers it would have to be booked as a stopover, which can only be done by an agent and will likely carry an up charge—likely significant.

I’d either bite the bullet on the early flight or take a train the night before.

Posted by
365 posts

buy BOS-CDG roundtrip tickets and separate tickets for MRS-CDG (about 50€ each)

This is what I’d do.

It’s simple. It’s getting you what you want.

Posted by
7181 posts

If you use the Multi-City tab of the Delta website, you may find that the night in Paris costs very little extra. I'm not promising, but have you explored?

I agree that I have the luxury of being retired, but can't you just add a day to your trip? It is quite unnecessary to sleep at CDG for a morning departure. Even a taxi is not that expensive, if you don't trust public transportation. A night in Paris is still a night in PARIS.

Posted by
870 posts

Having been bitten by an air traffic controllers strike a few years ago, which delayed our flight from MRS causing us to miss our connecting flight home from Frankfurt, and learning that strikes are common in France (airport workers), I would also opt for "buy BOS-CDG roundtrip tickets and separate tickets for MRS-CDG (about 50€ each)" or take the TGV but make the trip the day before to not run the risk of missing your flight out of CDG.

Posted by
2613 posts

I’ve done this before when I don’t want to take the 6am feeder flight from somewhere else in Europe. You can call Delta and they’ll help you do it. I’ve never been able to book it online. If you give them a call during off hours, maybe your wait will be limited.

They also often offer me a call back service when I call in - and then they call me back a few hours later. (Note: the wait is often less than this:)

Posted by
6175 posts

TGV back to CDG

That would be my recommendation. If you can't buy an open jaw ticket, book a round trip to Paris and take the train back to Paris the last night from what I guess is Marseille? Since you are planning to spend the last night at Charles de Gaulle, having separate tickets is not really a problem.

Posted by
1547 posts

My advice is to try and see if you can get your desired itinerary to show on Google flights and then use the link to ticket on Delta. I’ve seen this numerous times where my derived routing won’t ever show on United but comes up on google flights.

Also remember to use the departure time and not leave it as all day in order to force the overnight at CDG

Posted by
11034 posts

Does an 1125AM departure from MRS work ?

Found this using the 'multi city' option on the Delta site

Flight 1

flight number DL224
BOS To CDG
journey date Sat, May 27
SUN, MAY 28
departure time 6:55pm-arrival time 7:55am
number of stops:Nonstop,journey duration 7h 0m
cabin nameComfort+®

Flight 2

flight number DL83131, DL257
MRS To AMS to BOS
journey date Sun, Jun 11
SUN, JUN 11
departure time 11:25am-arrival time 4:55pm
number of stops:1 (AMS), journey duration 11h 30m
cabin nameComfort+®

Posted by
200 posts

@joe32F Thanks. I've looked at that combination but discounted it. I'm not comfortable with an 1hr 25min connection in AMS especially these days.

Posted by
8377 posts

Carol F. Delta's site for multi city should work, by putting in three flights, with the MRS > CDG June 10; and CDG> BOS June 11. But I tried and it didnt work for me either, so keep trying by phone.

Posted by
6 posts

We did the Eastern France tour in 2016 when it ended in Marseille. We opted for some time in Avignon and then took the TGV to CDG. It is a very relaxing way to get there and i always enjoy the train. Skip the hassle of the airport. When you add up the time to get to the airport early, go through security, the train might be quicker. Train goes right into the airport. Stayed at the IBIS in the terminal at the airport. Rooms were small, but there was an OK restaurant in the hotel and the hotel price was reasonable. We caught a 10:00 flight to SFO and it was super convenient. As for Amsterdam airport, we went through there on September 6 this year. Took KLM city hopper to Gdansk for RS Poland tour (highly recommended). We got to the airport at 5:30 am for a 9:30 am flight because we had also heard it was a mess. We were through security by 6. We had Delta priority but the regular line didn't look that much longer. If Delta lets you book the trip through AMS then they would be responsible for getting you back home if you miss the connection. Air France actually held our flight in September CDG to SFO because there was a late arriving flight from somewhere with people connecting to our flight. Have fun in Eastern France. A great tour with lots of wine and interesting places to see.

Posted by
13809 posts

Any way you can add a few days extra for Paris at the end of your tour? That way you can take the train from Marseilles to Paris, have a few days to decompress after your busy tour and then take the flight back to Boston.

Posted by
6231 posts

I stopped trying to reach Delta by phone a couple of years ago and now rely solely on messaging on their site, which works very well. You usually only have to wait 15-30 minutes, you can do other stuff while you're waiting, and they have the same capability of solving the problems as someone on the phone. I've done this the last three trips with Delta because each one had a problem that had to be fixed, and each time it was solved by the agent online.

Just go to https://www.delta.com/us/en/need-help/overview, then scroll down to "Still Need to Contact Us?" and click the messaging button. A popup will appear, and just follow directions. The nice thing about it is that it has a memory, so if you actually click out of it and it goes away, just reopen the site and popup and the conversation between you and the agent will still be there.

Posted by
1936 posts

I would just call them. Yes you will have to wait-I called BA on Sunday and had to wait 45 minutes just to speak to an agent. But usually they can help you find a good way to fly with the connections you want.

I still don't understand why open-jaws are such a pain to book on airline websites.

Posted by
454 posts

In September, we had a vacation in Switzerland, followed by a couple nights in Chamonix, then a week in Provence. It was a trip with friends. After our week in Provence, the airport we'd be flying home to was O'Hare. Our original plan had been to book a Delta/Air France flight from Marseille to Chicago. It's not a direct flight of course. There's a plane change at CDG in Paris. The daily non-stop from CDG to O'Hare is at 1:30 p.m. and that's the flight we wanted to be on, i.e., one stop to get home instead of two. But it sounded like an awful travel day. We would need to be on a very early flight out of Marseille to make the connection. We could have done it. But it would have involved getting up extremely early in the morning, like 4 a.m., driving an hour to Marseille, getting our rental car returned, checking into our flight and then waiting for it to depart, and we knew that any flight delay out of Marseille would run the risk of a missed connection. Even there was no delay, we still had the stress of having to make a connection, not knowing how busy CDG might be that day.

Instead of proceeding with that plan, we added one day to our trip and switched our rental car return to be the Avignon train station instead of the Marseille airport. After we checked out of our Provence rental home, we made an easy 45 minute drive to the Avignon train station, returned the car, and used pre-purchased train tickets to go all the way into the city of Paris (not the airport). We were going to be arriving in Paris at 1:40 p.m. or so, and with our flight home not until 1:30 the next day, we had rejected the idea of staying in an airport-area hotel. We had booked a stay in a hotel in the 6th arrondissement. The train took us to Gare Lyon, and from there it cost 10 Euro to take a cab to the hotel. We had a lovely afternoon walking the streets of Paris, followed by a wonderful dinner on Le Calief, a dinner cruise down the Seine (a particularly well done one!) That final night in Paris, enjoying the views on both banks of the Seine as we ate dinner, was the perfect way to cap off our trip. The next morning there was time to get breakfast at a cafe in the neighborhood, and pop into Luxembourg Gardens for a bit of a walk, and then we took a cab to the airport for our non-stop flight home. The cab fare was 60 Euro. We had so much spare time at the airport that we could have stayed in Paris longer, but we couldn't have known that and hadn't wanted to cut it close.

The CDG-ORD flight plus train ticket from Avignon to Paris cost less than what we'd have spent to fly MRS-ORD. The hotel we found in the 6th arrondissement was only 155 Euro, Hotel Des Grands Balcons. The rooms were small but the hotel was clean, friendly and very well located.

I'm not sure about this, but I think the rule that train tickets booked online in advance can only be used for that particular departure is no longer the rule, and you can change the departure time, maybe paying a small change fee. But if you choose your departure time carefully, you should't have to worry about that.