October Air Travel Advice Needed

Carly, 1. The best time to buy is generally 90-180 days out. Before that, airlines haven't lowered prices to compete, after that, they start to rise with demand. You can keep an eye out. Ask around for what a fair price is, and if you see it, grab it. The percent chance that an airfare will go up is 87%. Their are sales & special fares, but these are good general rules. 2. Whereabouts are you in PA, Pittsburgh itself? JFK/BWI/EWR/PHL can all be great places to fly out of. Detroit can be a Great choice as it's a hub - about the same drive time as Philly. 3. If you're going to stop for a couple days, London probably has the best access to discount airlines, but is more expensive to stay in. You can try booking a multi-destination fare, or stopover with the airline, but odds are (not always the case), if you're going to fly to the first hub in Europe for a couple of days, that you will save money booking on a smaller airline for the flight to Athens. Hope that all helps. General rule. Travel changes fast, but those will get you started. Chris

can't really offer any advice about which airport(s) to stop over in, but finding a good deal at the time of year you're traveling can be easily done as little as 2-3 weeks in advance. use farecompare.com! i've found many good deals to europe 2-3 weeks prior to departure in october in the past using that site. also, you said you'd be traveling on saturday oct. 1; i don' now how flexible that date is, but it's always cheapest to fly on tuesday or wednesday, in both directions.

I live 30 mins. North of Pitts. I'm planning to fly the entire route, no driving. I apologize for saying 'stpover', I meant layover, b\c I can't find any stateside flights directly to Athens, Greece. I was always told EWR, Newark was a mess, especially with delays, so I was surprised to see it listed as a suggestion. Detroit- I'd have to ly west only to backtrack east, definitely wasn't wantint to add more hours to the plane ride- why Detroit?I was looking to maybe fly out of Wash Dulles, what do you think? I was also hoping to fly business class, but can't find a seat anywhere that's under 4,000 ! Any suggestions on how I can fly business class for less? Also, what airliines do you like for overseas travel?

As to your first question, there is no way to predict and I'd be weary of advice/recommendation to that question. What is your budget? Meaning, what are you comfortable paying? Use kayak.com or a similar site and track your dates and then buy your ticket when it comes close to your price and then don't look back. You could encounter a sale, but then again, the price could go up considerably. Really no way to predict it. As someone else stated, flying on a Tue-Thur is usually less expensive than the weekend or Monday. Regarding your second question, use the airport that works best for your itinerary and maybe gets you the cheapest flight. They are all more or less the same. When you say "stopover", are you planning to spend a few days in that European city. If not and you mean a quick connection, it's again a bit irrelevant. Pick the one that gives you the shortest flight time and/or cheapest price. If you mean to stay a couple of days, then I would think London would be best because then you can catch one of the budget airlines to Greece (independent of your US to Europe itinerary). This may actually be a good option to look into even if you are not staying overnight only if you don't have much luggage and can carry-on and meet their luggage guidelines.
Edit: Just read your response above. Dulles would be a good option. Just to note, it's somewhat rare in my opinion, to encounter a delayed international flight. They aren't like domestic flights where there maybe several a day and they rely on the plane to make it back on time. Just my opinion.

I'm sorry, I meant 'connecting flight', not layover/stopover. Thank you

I often have to change planes on East Coast on my trips. I found washington ulles to be convenient and easy to get around. Munich is a nice "manageable" and seemingly uncluttered/unbusy airport to fly into and out of. If you need to stay overnight also a nice City to visit

Great, that is some really good information. I found connections at Wash Dulles & Munich. The connection time at Wash Dulles is only 42 minutes & the flight time is 9:45 pm.
Is this enough time to connect? I'd be flying in from Pittsburgh on Continental.

The flight from Wash Dulles is into Paris CDG.
That layover is 1 h 35 min. Is this enough time or am I asking for trouble? Thank you

I've also found the same route PIT-DUL-CDG-ATHENS as I described above that had 1 hr coonect at Wash Dulles, and 1 hr. 55 min. at Paris CDG. Would this be the better route to book b/c it allows a little more time for connecting?

Can you go from Pittsburgh to Newark which is a Continental hub and would cut out one stopover. I know Continental flies direct from NJ to CDG. We don't find Newark airport that bad at all.

I will check that, Gail. In the meantime, I found a flight to JFK, then straight on to Athens. This was thru Delta. Would this be good, too?

10 !! duplicates. That's the most I've seen for at least a year...