General Cycling Discussion - Plan a trip to the Netherlands. Need help.

Hi everybody.
I plan to fly to Holland in the end of July, but still haven't found the ticket price I hope to find. :)

Can anyone share the sources on where to buy a ticket for a reasonable price.
Leaving from LA and arriving in Amsterdam shows $900+ so far. It's a round trip for 40 days.

Any special places I could try looking?

Also travelers insurance for a visa. Which companies did you guys use? What was the price?

I would also like to take the bike with me if the airline will allow to do that without too much hassle.

I keep in mind that there are so many people here with valuable experiences.

Any information and help will be greatly appreciated.

Mikhail.

I got nada for you on travel insurance. I have homeowner's insurance, life insurance, and health insurance, and they all follow me wherever I go. If you have insurance, check to see what they do for travel.

LA is a long way from Europe. I'd look for a low cost carrier to get you to the east coast, then get on Iceland Air. They have incredible prices, but you've got to get to the east coast to fly with them. Check with Southwest, ATA, Air Tran, Ted, and other low cost carriers for the lowest price, then check Iceland Air and see what you can do from there.

Koffee

You are traveling at hi season. So am I and had scheduling probs as well so couldn't make the reservation till less than 2 weeks before departure.......So I bit the bullet and paid Air France 900$ after spending more than 3 hours on the I net and fone trying to get prices. Finally I realized that that the longer I looked the more costly the ticket was becoming. My charge per hour for my services ,( hi end cabinet design and construction) wasn't cost effective, so I paid what they asked. (Cash was 3% cheaper than a credit card).And had one more problem off my back and could then move on to other things
Some times the endless searching for the lowest price ends being not so cheap after all is considered
The other reason was that I thought nonstop Miami-Paris meant less chance of the bike being damaged if a change of planes was necessary

Still looking for a health insurance carrier, as I need kinda specific coverage, major airlines charge up to 6-8 first class seats if one needs to be air evac'ed back to the USA

I got nada for you on travel insurance. I have homeowner's insurance ...
Thanks for the reply Coffee. SOrry for the delay, I only now have the first opportunity from the time I posted this. Yes, going to the East coast first also seemed like a reasonable idea, but it turns out to cost same or more.


You are traveling at hi season. ...

Yeah, I realized just the same thing. Even more, the longer I look, the more expensive it gets as I was looking at the cheapest places first. The time here can be crucial, indeed. Pretty much the whole deal turns out to be more than $1000 ( I could have bought 50 Schwinn Travelers for that :)) ), after all the fees and taxes... but that's the price of the Summer Travel.

Thank you for the information. Happy trails to you.

Mikhail.