Undoubetdly there will be no direct flights from your city in the United States to Montpellier, France. This means you will need to find the best two or three-legged fare to get there, and that's not always easy.
There are many different possibilities, but only a handful of good ones. Your first thought would probably be to go through Paris and connect to Montpellier. Although this is the fastest way to Montpellier, it is rarely the cheapest option especially near Labor Day weekend. If you can find this trip under 1000 dollars, then book it. If you fancy a nice train ride, the TGV (Really Fast Train) can make the trip to Montpellier in 2.5 hours with some scenic flare, but again, the airfare to Paris might leave you without a spare cent to buy a croque monsieur.
For the cheapest option I've seen to date, you'll need to get to London Stansted or Frankfurt and then fly Ryanair to Montpellier. The upside is that your second flight will cost no more than 80 dollars round-trip. Ryanair is what they call a low-cost airline here in Europe, and you will see that they offer the Frankfurt-Montpellier leg for only 4.99 Euros! The downside is that Ryanair flies one flight per day to MPL from London Stansted and one from Frankfurt Hahn at rather inconvenient times. The London flight leaves at 6AM from Stansted, and the Frankfurt flight leaves at 7PM. This means a flight from the US to London would arrive three hours too late to catch the STN-MPL flight, and the US to Frankfurt flight would leave you a long time to eat bockwurst and sauerkraut in Germany.
As far as the first leg is concerned, I hope something good pops up (especially to Frankfurt or Paris). I'll include a few links here at the bottom. I like to use Kayak to search for flights because of its ease of use. If you still like Orbitz and Travelocity, I've included those too. They all have nice "FareWatch" functionality where you will be alerted by email or text if a cheap fare pops up. There has been a recent push by Virgin Atlantic to connect the US and London for cheap, particularly New York and Chicago, although currently the flight is still not the best. That link is below as well.
So far I have found a Northwest flight from Cleveland to Frankfurt arriving at 1:20PM, and a 7:00PM Ryanair flight from Frankfurt to Montpellier for under 800 dollars using the links below.
Airfare Links
KAYAK
- Cleveland to Paris
- Cleveland to Montpellier
- Cleveland to London
- Cleveland to Frankfurt
RYANAIR
- London Stansted to Montpellier (Usually 80 dollars round trip)
- Frankfurt to Montpellier (Usually 60 dollars round trip)
ORBITZ
TRAVELOCITY
VIRGIN ATLANTIC
- Cleveland to London
- Chicago to London
TGV
- Paris to Montpellier
4 comments:
4.99 Euros, huh?
Just how does one SAY that? "4 Euros and 99 ..." euroites?
My very limited research shows that is cheapest to fly to Frankfurt, and then Marseilles and Barcelona are the next best options. The travel times back to the US through Frankfurt are difficult though. Very cheap right now to Frankfurt... about $700 round trip!!! You can buy two tickets there for the price of 1 to Paris!
I really didn't mean to be Anonymous. This is Stacey, of course!
Careful with the Frankfurt option! I've heard that the international aiport and the out-of-the-way one that Ryanair uses are about 90 minutes apart by bus.
Not sure, but just sayin'.
I'm seeing flights from Columbus that connect through Detroit ... they land at Charles de Gaulle, and then a short flight from Orly gets me to Montpellier. They're running $900 plus tax.
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