I've got the travel dates pretty well nailed down for a mid-Sept to early mid-Oct tip, and I thought I'd check out airfare via a well known national travel agency. They were $300 higher than my rough estimate, $2800, I quickly roughed out a week ago. However, I see they have me from Sacramento to SFO to London on a r/t for about $360 more than I found. They've got me from London to Dublin for $275, and I think one can do better than that by at least $100. I may be able to press them on that, but I'll alternately try another well know travel agency to people who listen to KGO-AM from San Francisco on Saturday mornings. My trip takes me to Athens and beyond before turning back via Cairo, then home via London.
In either case I suppose, there's a possibility of getting a better break on it all, if I allow them to schedule hotels, and such. Don't know. At present I think I can do this pretty well myself, and on the road if necessary, which is likely fairly often.
Then there's DIY. The interesting aspect of this is that I have about $1000 worth of discount on a major credit card for a r/t ticket to Europe, and beyond. I may have them scope this out for the entire trip, or just go for Sacramento to London and do the rest of purchasing on my own.
Another way of approaching this is to wait a week or so and hope the airlines will bring their Sept-Oct prices down, and go with one of the ideas above. I understand European airlines and USA airlines are not necessarily in synch on this.
Comments?