I was born in Darlington so I guess I am another Teesider, despite leaving over 30 years ago, Teeside airport is only served via Amsterdam which means either a KLM or Northwest connection in.
Try looking at Manchester as an alternative from Atlanta as there are daily Delta direct flights, often much cheaper than via Amsterdam plus not having to transit with young kids or as an alternative check out Newcastle.
From experience the drive from Manchester to Darlington is approx 3 hours.
I use Kayak.com as a fare comparison site and use Auto Europe to rent car from.
Long stay parking at Parking Spot in Atlanta costs approx $90 a week for covered secured parking

Your absolutely cheapest option will likely be to fly direct to London and get the train, you'll just need to price all the routes before you decide which way to go.

The national rail link that dunroving provided estimates the time on the train from Heathrow to Durham as 4hrs which is not too bad (if you can get a train from KX that requires no changes)

mark, good advice from vimto. I'll add that there is a rail station on Manchester Airport and a no change train journey takes 2hrs 4min to Darlington.

I flew into Heathrow on November 29th, for 10 Days, and rented an '09 Ford Galaxy MPV from Enterprise, as there was 6 of us travelling.

It worked out great for us.

Edit: Perhaps you could get a good deal out of Manchester.


Jim.

I was just on ba.com out of curiosity for flights in mid Jan.... fare quoted was 366 rtn; but the taxes and bs was $384!!! total of 750 rtn... taxes were more than the fare - talk about a teaser airfare!!!

Look out for credit card deals that offer miles as sign-up bonuses?

If you and the wife had applied for Chase BA cards about a month ago all four of you could have potentially traveled for free (well, paying taxes only). Caveat - not sure how it worked on partner airlines.... Anyway - get yourself on Flyertalk as any deals that are going get on there pretty quickly.

Okay i have made a decision and we will travel during christmas 2010 my kids are out of school aroung the 16th december and we will stay for 2 weeks. I can book tickets untill around feb. Thanks for all the tips and if anyone see's any deals drop me a line.

Your children can vacation in Britain on US passports, but if you were born in Britain, have you thought of getting them British passports?

I just got rid of my BA Chase CC. I flew back in August supposedly free, but had to pay $500 odd in Taxes ect. Then at the other end, at 7am, have a 3 hour plus (depending on the M25 traffic, try never to arrive Mon or Fri mornings) drive to Bristol. I am now going to use Continental, I flew with them a couple of years ago, Tampa to Newark, 4 hour wait, no problem, they have a Brooklyn Brewery and several other good places to eat & drink. Then I think it was only about 6 or 7 hours to Bristol. There its a lot more easy for someone to pick you up, although I want a hire car anyway. I used to fly BA all the time, but they are very expensive now, and the hassle of Gatwick is just not worth it!!

Watch out for any reduced baggage allowances on any connecting regional flight since they are often much less than the international allowances and could stiff you!

If you make a through booking then this isn't an issue surely?

Correct, certainly with the likes of flymaybe. If you booked a connecting flight seperately withe easyjet though you'd have to stump up the cash.

Hi all,
okay my travel dates will be the 15th/16th december through 29/30 december 2010. It seems that the 16th is good but does not show any dates after the 22nd. we will stay at heathrow 2 nights and then get the train back home. So if anyome sees an deals let me know.
thanks mark

You're probably a little early then for booking just yet, the dates might appear by the end of the month. Make sure you take out travel insurance to cover your trip, it'd be a bummer to get sick and lose the fares.

Does my american health insurance cover me when i am in england. I have blue cross blue shield