Thanks for the insider info. My Delta friend works out of CVG and is not in the reservation/ticketing department so he doesn't seem to be very familiar with all the details regarding to using buddy pass, let alone travel load between JFK and Europe. The website you sent me is current not working. Maybe I'll try later. I've also heard about Delta's internal site called TravelNet (<a href="https://dlnet.delta.com/deltapassport/login.jsp" target="_blank">https://dlnet.delta.com/deltapassport/login.jsp</A>). Does that site give the actual availability like TravelLine?

I've already compiled the list of flights between JFK and most Europe destinations. And I just found out that Delta no longer permits buddy pass on code share flights so the list is down to just 11 flights between JFK and Europe (10 cities that we won't mind going) each direction, with another 11 between ATL and Europe as backups. So it's not too bad to type in all that in TravelLine if we (me and the girl I am going to Europe with) divide up the load. I guess my other big question is that is it possible to fly open jaw with DL buddy pass? If that's possible, I can just wait till a few days before returning to call to see the return flight from which city is more available and pay a little extra money to change to it. That'll definitely increase my chance of getting back on time.

So you think June is busier than July? I don't know why I had the impression that it's the other way around. And it's good to know that Tues/Wed are good for outbound and Tues/Wed/Thur is good for return. Our trip has been extended from 10+ days to 14+ days since there are just too many places we want to go to. So maybe we'll do 6/28+ to 7/12+.

As for traveling within Europe, I am familiar with the low cost carriers. I know it would save a lot of time but Eurail provides a lot more flexibility. We are trying to be as spontaneous as possible (as in having a list of places we want to go to but depending on how much we like once place, we may stay a little longer or shorter before moving on, etc). That's probably going make any sort of reservation more than one or two day ahead of time difficult. I'll definitely try to plan ahead as much as possible with weekend hotel rooms. I'll bring a huge list of hotels for all the cities we may visit so we won't end up homeless at 2AM in the morning at a unfamiliar city. And as a backup, I can actually afford expensive hotels if we have to, we are just trying to do the budget travel thing because we think it'll make a great experience for us, especially since we are both turning 26 later this year.