Without knowing where you will be flying from and returning to, it's hard to respond about the price. But, August is the highest priced month to travel to Europe now -- and each year in the last 3-4 has brought an incredible increase in the number of Americans traveling to Europe, giving airlines no incentive to reduce prices to fill planes! For flights from DFW or Houston on your dates, for example, $ 1000 is right in line with other fares I've been seeing.

It is generally less expensive to begin your flights Monday-noon through Thursday-noon in each direction....you've done well by planning to depart on a Wednesday, but your return is on a Sunday, so you might want to see what reduction, if any, you would get by waiting a day or two and compare that to what it would cost you to stay in Europe a few more nights. Or, back up and depart on the 14th if you can, return on the 7th.

Have you checked flying into Munich and out of Frankfurt? I'm not looking at a map at the moment, but isn't Regensburg (wonderful town!) easily driveable from Munich, perhaps even closer than from FF? It shouldn't cost much more, perhaps the same and perhaps even less, to fly into one of these cities and out of another, and you should be able to drop the car with no drop-fee for a rental that began in one location and ended in another. Sally Watkins, CTC