Sometimes it saves to combine your itinerary with multiple carriers. Case in point is this Los Angeles to Madrid fare for $537 with United Airlines, British Airways and Air Canada. (see below)

British Airways and several other major airlines are actually having good fare sales to Europe right now, but we’re finding better deals with some “Multiple Airline” itineraries which can be purchased through consolidators like Orbitz and CheapTickets.

We found this on Orbitz for March travel…

We are seeing pleasantly low airfares to Paris this June from five US cities starting at $522. This is notable, because historically these tickets would’ve been in the $800 range.

In fact, June 2009 will be the cheapest travel month in years, thanks to the recession, low fuel prices and swine flu.

While visiting Europe, our strengthening dollar will also buy you more British Pounds and Euros than last year. A year ago, you needed $1.54 to buy €1 Today, you only need $1.35. The value of the British Pound has changed even more significantly. You needed $1.94 for £1 a year ago. Today, you only need $1.51.

Good luck with your travel searching…

To Paris, from:
Miami (MIA) $522+ Delta
New York (JFK) $537+ Swiss
Boston (BOS) $599+ Swiss
Washington DC (IAD) $653+ United
Detroit (DTW) $669+ NWA

Please note: These rates were discovered at 6:00pm (PST) on May 13, 2009. They may have fluctuated by the time you view them.

Madrid, Spain
from LAX / Oct 29 – Nov 9 / $718 / American Airlines
from JFK / Oct 6 – Oct 16 / $438 / Air Comet S.A.
from ORD / Nov 2 – Nov 16 / $598 / Continental Airlines

Tokyo, Japan
from LAX / Oct 12 – Nov 2 / $763 / American Airlines
from JFK / Sep 27 – Oct 4 / $869 / American Airlines
from ORD / Sep 13 – Sep 18 / $820 / Japan Airlines

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
from LAX /Nov 18 – Nov 26 / $724 / COPA Panama
from JFK / Oct 11 – Oct 18 / $794 / Delta Airlines
from ORD / Oct 27 – Nov 4 / $792 / Delta Airlines

Very reasonable fares in my opinion.

I recently needed to book a R/T ticket from Budapest to Phoenix. The best deals I found were with KLM/NWA for $850, but that still seemed a little high. Some more thought needed to be put into this. So I decided to dissect and run a search for each leg of the itinerary and see what it turned up. It showed that Budapest to Los Angeles was only $650 – meaning that the Los Angeles to Phoenix leg was responsible for $200 of the $850 fare!

Knowing that Southwest Airlines typically charges $100 R/T from Los Angeles to Phoenix, I just went ahead and booked the KLM/NWA BUD-LAX fare for $650. I then booked LAX-BUD for $100 on Southwest. All told, this saved me about $100 and the need to fly domestically on NWA, which has a tendency to mix stop in Memphis or Minneapolis in many of their itineraries.

When flying separate airlines just remember to leave plenty of time between flights, and if you’re checking in baggage, confirm that the airlines will transfer them to the other airline for you.

Unfortunately, for me, much of my savings went to the taxi toll to get to Ferihegy Airport.