Planning your route to the US

[virtua]

My question is adressed to those who fly from countries located very far from the US, so there is no direct flight. How do you guys buy tickets, so that you are sure that you choose the right option in terms of price, layover and etc?

I know there are search engines like skyscanner, but still it is difficult for me to choose the cheapest and the most comfortable option.

[TakeruK]

I use flight search engines like hipmunk (you can order the search by things like "price", "time" or "agony"). It allows you to search multiple airlines at once and has intuitive sliders so that you can exclude, e.g. 6am flights if you don't want that etc.

[techboy]

I used flights.google.com and saved some flights to check prices. Give a try if you haven't done so yet. You may check dates and see how much tickets will cost in future.

[fuzzylogician]

flights.google.com is good if you are flexible, it will show you if it's better to fly a couple of days earlier or later than you had planned more easily than other search engines I know. For actual price comparison, I usually then also look at hipmunk and kayak (hipmunk is my favorite). Sometimes I see something there that google didn't show me. If the entire flight is with one company, I will also go on the company website to see if I can buy the ticket directly there, but usually it's cheaper through the search engine. 

[shinigamiasuka]

I'm looking at available routes and airlines from Trip Advisor and Expedia, and then checking them out on the airlines' sites.

[shinigamiasuka]

[...]but still it is difficult for me to choose the cheapest and the most comfortable option.

 

The way I'm doing it is looking among the flights with shorter duration and as fewer stops as possible. See what fits your price range better. I'd say (depending on where you live) try not to have more than two stops. If it's not significantly pricier (and out of your price range), one stop is the best (given a direct one isn't possible).

[virtua]

Has anyone ever used Vayama?  I feel like they are terrible, although they are the only option I find..

[shinigamiasuka]

Has anyone ever used Vayama?  I feel like they are terrible, although they are the only option I find..

 

Never heard of the airline. I just got my tickets with Royal Jordanian (Jeddah > Amman > Detroit).