# Where can I find decent airline tickets to France? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889 "2006-10-10T02:59:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/21 "2006-10-10T19:02:08Z")
Sorry for not being clear pulykamell, her spring break is the week before mine, so I would arrive on Saturday, the 9th and spend Sat night and Sunday with her in Amsterdam before returning with her to France to spend the rest of my trip there until the 18th. I was also chatting in #straightdope and forgot that I hadn’t explained it fully here. I plan on getting my passport started tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/22 "2006-10-10T19:45:13Z")
Amsterdam? KLM. 🙂 On [nwa.com](http://nwa.com) (Northwest Airlines, which KLM seems to redirect to for US people) I saw return flights LAX to AMS for USD 605 (plus taxes, I suspect). I picked days almost at random, and there was an outbound direct flight, but the return stopped TWICE. I’m sure you could do better. So if you want to skip Toronto, I guess that’s okay. :: snif :: 🙂 Or you could do an ‘open-jaw’ trip: go to Amstardam and come back from Paris. When I went to Europe, I went to Helsinki and came back from London. (On KLM, incidentally; in both directions I changed between transatlantic and local European flights at Schiphol airport near Amsterdam.) Open-jaw flights are more expensive, I believe, though most online booking sites I’ve seen are now pricing outbound and return flights individually. Amsterdam and Paris are close enough together that you could just go to and from Amsterdam and take the train to and from Paris. Or vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/23 "2006-10-10T20:11:38Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Amsterdam and Paris are close enough together that you could just go to and from Amsterdam and take the train to and from Paris. Or vice versa. [/QUOTE] True - and IIRC the Air France-KLM includes connecting ‘flights’ which are actually TGVs. However, Amsterdam to Strasbourg is a lot further… ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/24 "2006-10-10T20:35:44Z")
Unless you are flying tomorrow, 3000 dollars sounds like at least 2000 too many. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/25 "2006-10-10T20:39:30Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] True - and IIRC the Air France-KLM… [/QUOTE] Air France-KLM _merger_… ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2006, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/26 "2006-10-11T01:18:26Z")
[QUOTE=kimera] Ack, posted too soon. pulykamell, I can not sleep on airplanes and I am worried about becoming disoriented when I arrive so I’d prefer to have as few hassles to deal with after I land. Are the trains really easy to figure out even for an exhaused American? [/QUOTE] Not many people sleep on airplanes. On my Detroit to Osaka to Taipei flight 2 weeks ago (19 hours of pain, woo hoo) I didn’t sleep more than an hour. You’ll be just fine getting onto a train, you’ll have that adrenaline rush of landing in a strange new place and going through mild culture shock etc. Where it will hit you is later that day. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2006, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/27 "2006-10-11T02:20:19Z")
Since there is no single factual answer to the OP, let’s try IMHO. **samclem** ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889/28 "2006-12-10T16:07:30Z")
[QUOTE=kimera] One of my best friends just got a job in France and invited me to come stay with her. I figure I can head over during spring break which would be near the end of March. I see a lot of offers for student travels (which I am) but I’m wary of dropping money on a website I don’t know. Any suggestions both online or off? I don’t mind spending a couple hundred extra to fly on a more comfortable airline, but I don’t want to pay $3000 I see some places are asking. I live in Orange County and I can fly out of LAX or John Wayne and she is in Strasbourg, France. I’d prefer not to make her travel to meet me, but I am willing to consider flying into other cities in France. Thanks for your help! [/QUOTE] The best site to look for airfares I´ve found is www.kayak.com, for LAX to CDG (Paris) in March I saw prices on the 700 dollars by British Airways. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-find-decent-airline-tickets-to-france/375889.md?page=1)