Be careful buying tickets to Odessa, you might never leave Texas.
Tomorrow at 4 PM Central time check Aerosvit's "Crazy Fridays" special on tickets. You might find flights to Kiev from JFK for $499 and @ $30 to Odessa for round trip flights. They are usually posted, but last week was meager on sales of flights.
Actually, on aerosvit, there is a sale NY-ODS for $765 for Feb & Mar on Tues, Thurs, Sun travel. Book anytime. Probably get flight Houston to JFK for $250.
They do offer cheap flights domestically, in Oct I travelled ODS-KBP for $48 tx incl...one time KBP-SIP for $26.
Thank you all. This gives me enough info for any circumstance, date, hurried or scheduled in advance.
This will save me a lot of grief AND $. Not a great impression if you wind up in Poland when trying to meet gf in Nikolaev.
You're pretty decent blokes despite what a couple people might say. :)
Remember, my $900 (including $140 for taxi) was from New York (fare still available from Aerosvit). The dates I priced were 10 to 17 February (6 days in Ukraine).
orbitz.com (the site I use most often) has Houston-Odessa roundtrip for $1152 on these dates.
airfare.com has the identical trip for $1132, so you can get to Nikolaev and back for about $1270 including taxi. A lot better than $3200!
The flights are longish (an average of 5 hours each direction spent in layovers), but a Texan has to endure some layovers, and it would be comfortable for me.
Although I would probably fly to Kyiv and separately book a flight/train/taxi to my destination city, for a first-time visitor to Ukraine I think it is much better to fly to Odessa and reserve a taxi (they can be booked in advance thru several websites). This way, the baggage is checked through right to Odessa, and no need to find one's way around or buy tickets in a strange place.
And with the fares right now, I don't think you get there any cheaper by doing it the 'hard way' in any case.
Thanks durak...everybody. I would have to go back to remember exactly what I was doing to get such bad rates. 1 of the things I learned here was booking dates. I was trying like Mon. go...Thurs. return. Thinking the fares would be lower 'off weekend'. That comes from living in a tourism town. As soon as I adjusted my dates, the fares dropped a huge chunk. Puzzled me at 1st but then light bulb lit; Business Travelers! They are the lifeblood of the airlines now.
I think I will fly into Odessa. Leave adventures until it is somewhat comfortable territory. There's a lot of trouble ($) to get into. The pie eyed completely lost in strange world sticks out like a neon sign to am opportunistic "businessman'. When I got into Bangkok I almost purchased; services of a hooker, limo @ 5x cost to my destination & joining up with a rebel militia in my 1st 10 minutes of arrival! :) I'm not quite THAT dense but there are an awful lot of helpful people coming out of woodwork to offer transpo etc.... I'll save my creative self-dependence for when I know the lay of the land.
Ha, ha KL...I think he meant his future girlfriend.
Hi everyone,
I am also from Texas and plan a trip over yonder in about March or April. It will probably be one-way, as I know I won't want to be coming back.
First a stop in Panama or Belize to visit friends and see about a house. From there, break on through to the other side...probably a few more trips back to C.A. to check on progress, and getting acquainted with the special someone's. I know I will marry one of them, just don't know which one, and whether to do it in Ukraine or on travel. Any ideas which the ladies would REALLY prefer...or both?
So Beemer, I would be happy to pay for your services to get me hooked up with the least wearisome flights and arrangements. What the heck, I like how you keep these cowboys in "czech"...OK, corny, I know...