Strategy #1- Search for low air fares to Greece 'til you're Blue!
If you want to leave from the airport nearest you and fly directly to Athens the best thing to do is search until you've exhausted all possibilities and come up with a fare that you can live with. If you live near a major US airport, you won't have to search too hard as NY, Boston, Chicago, Los Angelos, Miami and Washington usually have the lowest fares(and most easily found). If you live near a smaller airport then you will have to search harder as the low fares are more difficult to find!
I know when I was living in NY, it was so easy to find great fares, but since moving to NC it has become much more difficult.
In 1999 when I was trying to buy a ticket to Berlin three weeks before I wanted to go(Dec 26- Christmas Season and last minute is not a good combination). I searched all over the internet, through newspapers(Sunday papers usually have a great travel section) and used the yellow pages(increasingly less effective for finding low fares). Every time I saw the words "As low as $599" it instilled a glimmer of hope that was quickly extinguiused once I contacted the company. The rates invariably went up to $1200 or more since "the lower fares have all been sold out".(If you've been doing any searching than I'm sure you know what I'm talking about!).
I don't know if it's because I'm still living in the past, but I really dislike paying over $1000 for any of my tickets(and maybe it's an arbitrary number), but so far I can only think of a couple of times that I have(but I'm sure that will change!).
I was at a crossroads for my trip to Berlin. I would have to either pay the $1200+ or cancel the trip. I wasn't ready to give up yet on the plan so I ran a few more searches. Much to my amazement I found a company in Tennessee(I can't remember the name) but they had tickets advertised for about $700. I called them and sure enough they said they had them.
I reviewed the flight itinerary(RDU-ATL-Brussels-Berlin and back the same way) which was listed as Delta flights. It looked good to me so I purchased them. The flight from Raleigh to Atlanta was on Delta and then from Atlanta to Brussels was on Sabena(before it's ill-fated demise) and the thrid airline was a small regional German airline(can't remember the name) that took me to Berlin.
The flights were uneventful and I ended up having a great 2000 New Year's in Germany.
If I hadn't continued searching, I would have either paid more than I wanted to or else cancelled the trip...
So..... Start searching the ads on these pages(you can refresh the browser and new ads will come up.) Make sure to write down the fares and the web site address(you don't want to find a great fare and then not remember where it was!). Once you've exhausted the ads, try the search engines. I also suggest that you use the Google search engine that I've posted at the bottom of this page. This will give you a pretty good idea of what's out there!
If you visit this page you can check rates on 7 different sites very easily!
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