London airfare

I just booked my flight for a trip I have in Sept.

Check google flights and when you see a price you can live with, book it.

I was watching the flight I wanted for 2 months. The price would go up and down. But each time it came down, it came down not as far as when it previously came down. So, when it came down yesterday, I decided to book it and be done with it.

Sorry but as much as I like traveling from Atlanta and love the easy transits between terminals, New York is usually cheaper. Another option-the day flight from Boston. We did this last year and I think it will be our go-to choice for London from now on.

Your parameters of nonstop and a step above economy for those dates are going to be expensive. Unless you are willing to shell out thousands extra for premium economy, consider buying coach tickets and then paying to select extra legroom seats. You will still get a bit of extra space, but not have to mortgage your house to do so.

The trends in airline pricing this year haven’t necessarily followed past experiences. There is no “perfect time” to purchase a ticket. Most travelers are monitoring prices to get a sense of “typical” and then purchasing.

If you back it up one day, you'll find the flights on 6/1/23 to be cheaper on non-stop--on American AIrlines/British Airways.

Unfortunately your hometown Delta's airfares are out of sight on 6/2/23.

Atlanta may be the largest airport in the Southeast, however they're not the lowest priced airport. And flying Economy Plus will be at a hefty premium over already expensive Basic Economy prices. It's all supply and demand, and June is the high season. Even the end of May is not that much cheaper.

I usually travel to London each summer to visit family - prices are way up and I don't see them coming down. You have several options. Fly from Atlanta on a direct flight (Delta or Virgin) and use the multi-city option to put in your flight from Dublin home. Do not buy one-way tickets they are expensive. Book main cabin and not basic economy and then upgrade your seats when you select. (virgin may not allow you to select seats as it's a code-share). United is not much cheaper and requires a stop.

when you see a price you can live with, book it.

I'd add, "and don't look back." It is pretty hit or miss to nail down the single cheapest flight for any given year.

I also like the flights from Boston (although I live 1-1/2 hours away). It is really nice to arrive late in the day and settle right in to the new time zone rather than arriving very tired, first thing in the morning.

From Columbia, SC, we opted to fly United (had a voucher from 2020) to DC in steerage. From Columbia, we have to connect to get anywhere*, DC to Heathrow was a shorter flight (7:15 or so) than the ones from Atlanta (8:45+), and the layover time was shorter. For the long flight, we're doing Economy Plus. We're both short, so it doesn't take much extra space for us to be semi-comfortable.

• When you die in the southeastern US and you're going to Heaven, you have a two hour layover in Atlanta. If you're not going to Heaven, they keep changing your concourse and gate to Hell until you realize ... you're already there.

Whatever you decide, be sure to book with the airline directly.

Charlie Spencer, as someone who lived in Cola 25 years and still lives in one city that's held hostage by Delta, I loved the end of your post.

Bought my ticket to Heathrow at the beginning of the month and the price has gone up $500 already. I subscribe to thepointsguy and they see prices rises through out the year. Suggest find what works and buy.

I am trying to decide between American and Delta going to London in October and home from Lisbon. also in October

American stays steady but. Delta went up $700 for October 27. For October 28, it went down $100. So if I wanted to take Delta, it would be $1,900 on October 27 but $1,100 on October 28th. Can you believe the difference? Exact same cabin and seat.

Last week Delta was $1,200 for the 27th but then went up to $1,900 a couple of days ago. I guess a large group bought many seats or perhaps a travel service reserved a block.

American has remained steady at about $1,100 or $1,200.

I was going to buy American last night but put it off and then when I checked Delta today, I have decided to put it off a little more.

I think that i want to go Delta rather than American but both are ok.

If I wanted to go Delta, I would have to stay an extra night in Lisbon. I could handle that

There was just a segment about air travel on NBC.

There are too many reward points out there because of COVID and a shortage of airplane seats. Travelers have been hoarding their points and now want to travel, travel and travel.

Airlines have been upping the required points needed to fly free. For instance, one flight once required 35,000 points but now the same flight requires 100,000 points.

Airlines are doing the same with lounge services and other amenities and perks.

According to the moderator of the segment, nothing is going to change anytime soon. So if you see something you can live with, grab it.

Several things to consider ...

1) Consider leaving mid-week ... Friday night usually costs more
2) Look for a cheap fare from another hub (JFK, BOS, PHL, CLT, IAD, etc...) then look for a flight to that hub and compare total costs
3) Stay in economy, don't spend the extra $$$ for just a few more inches of legroom (unless there are reasons why you need the extra legroom) ... you're not going to get much sleep no matter where you sit (unless you go business class) and the gruel is the same

Remember as the cost of a ticket goes up you'll be multiplying by 4 which can add up very fast.

Unless you have flexible dates, with the willingness to have stops, I'd book now. I find flights only seem to get cheaper if you're willing to give up something you want (flexible dates, fly roundtrip to the same city, add a stop). We ended up booking round trip non-stop to London for May/June back in December for $700 a person economy. I wanted in London, out Paris but it was consistently over $1300 so I gave up on the multi-city and decided I'd rather have non-stop.

We live in Portland OR/Vancouver area and ended up booking a non stop flight out of Seattle instead of PDX cause it was gonna save us 1k. We weren’t flexible on our dates cause it’s spring break for us. So we leave Friday on March 31st and Home April 9 on a Sunday. $750 per person which I was ok with for prime time travel. Over $950 out of PDX. We bought in January, and prices have only gone up since. Glad I booked when I did and don’t have to stress out over it. But we were looking everywhere, México, Hawaii, and airfare everywhere is crazy expensive. It was cheaper for us to go to London then it was for us to go to Mexico or Hawaii. We would rather go to Europe for that price even though it may not be sunny and warm. Just book what feels right and don’t look back. And plan the rest of your Vacation!

Google flights and SkyScanner I was looking at everyday. And if you have a CC for point and can book on a portal do that and use some point to bring the cost down. But you will easily make up those point if your CC gets 5x point like our when you book thru the portal

Have you considered TAP Portuguese Airlines? In late November I found and booked a flight from Newark to London (Gatwick Airport) @ about $1250 Economy Plus for one adult, several hundred dollars less than what the fare was in October. I don't know if your flight would take you directly to Lisbon and on to London; but you might check. We want to see a bit of Lisbon on our way home, so arranged to spend three days there after our two weeks in England.

A few months ago I was chatting with a friend about a possible Amtrak trip. I'd take the California Zephyr from Denver to the San Francisco area, then catch the Coast Starlight up to Seattle. Two very long and very scenic train trips. I said, "I'll probably be 'trained out' by then, and would want to just catch a cheap flight home from Seattle."

My friend gave me one of her "get real" looks. She was just back from a couple of flights to visit her daughter across the country. "Suz," she said, "there are no cheap flights anymore."

Words of wisdom. The pandemic changed things. There are bargains to be found, but I agree with the advice above, that when you find a fare that is acceptable, especially for a long flight - book it and don't look back. You can faff around trying to save another hundred bucks, only to find that the tickets you passed up last week now cost more, if they are available at all.

My prices on. both Delta and American have gone down since yesterday.

If I wanted to fly Lisbon to Austin Delta October 27, it has gone down by about $600 from yesterday but it says only 4 seats left at this price.

I am going to wait a little bit longer. My flight is not until October.

You have stronger nerves than I do.

Airlines have multiple inventories for economy class, each costing X dollars ... straight Y (full coach fare which is what you get when you book the day before or on popular flights which you didn't book early enough to snag a discounted fare), then others such as M, K, V, etc... ... each inventory has a set number of seats at a certain fare and, once going to 0, you can't buy for that price anymore ... some of those inventories also time out (example: 21 day advance purchase) and the remaining seats then move up to a higher costing inventory ... I suspect they either added a few more seats to that inventory or some people cancelled, rescheduled or upgraded ... I don't know the fares you saw the past several days but a drop of $600 is a lot (unless it dropped, for example, from $3600 to $3000) ... if you can live with the new fare (and any restrictions such as non-refundable, boarding last, pay for checked bags, etc...) then might be a good idea to grab it now and not look back or else you might start kicking yourself for buying earlier ...

A couple of weeks back, I got something like $1,200 or $1,300 for my multi city flight via Delta.

The next week, I went back to Delta to see if there was a reduction and the same round trip flight was now $1,900.00. I could not believe my eyes, I thought that it had to be a mistake. But then, I put in the next day for the return flight and the fare went back down to $1,200 or $1,300.00. Since then, I have attempted the original flight (the one from two weeks ago) and we are back down to $1,200 or $1,300 with a note that only four seats are left.

That is a big difference.

Today I got an email from Delta offering a special deal. If you have a gold Delta American Express card and you book with rewards, you will get 15% off supposedly any flight at all. Unfortunately I do. not have enough rewards.

When I was planning my 2018 trip, I priced out a multi-city itinerary into central Europe (either Munich or Budapest, I think) and home from London. Several months before departure I watched that route bounce up and down at least 4 times between $800+ and $1300+. It was something of an education for me. My goal in life is now to avoid those $500 upward bounces. Of course, to recognize them, you really need to have been watching the fare on your preferred route for a while. Checking once or even twice a day is not too often, because those bounces I saw were coming along at least every two or three days.

And that is what I am doing acraven. I go to American and Delta at least once a day if not twice and do a mock booking. In fact, I may be ready to do that soon.

acraven and others

I just did my test on both American and Delta. I got good prices on both. I even got a good price on Delta on the day that I wanted to come home. The fare that had been like $1,900 is now back down to $1,100

I am leaning towards Delta who will put me on Virgin

I'm glad you've got an opportunity to buy at a decent price. It's really difficult to predict fares now.

We watched fares on Kayak (SEA-LHR) for a little while, for an August Rick Steves tour, and finally decided to book and be done with it last week. We went with a nonstop fare from Seattle on Delta (Main Cabin) of $1,150 ($1,395 after taxes). The additional cost of the Comfort+ class just wasn't worth it to us.

I also need to stop watching fares :) but I did look again today and they were suddenly much more expensive - to the tune of $900 or so more per traveler. Crazy volatility.

So I live in Atlanta and here’s what I’m doing.

Use Delta miles to fly round-trip to and from Boston. On the day I go to London. I fly to Boston at seven in the morning. My flight out to London is at five at night. On the return I’m spending the night in Boston. I’ve then bought business class seats on Virgin from Boston to London for less than coach from Atlanta.

Even if I had paid for the ticket to Boston, it still would’ve been cheaper. Now I do have a place to stay that is free in Boston but there’s a hotel at the airport that’s usually a couple hundred bucks - so you can do the math it may work out for you it may not.

@Carol. If those are separate tickets, you are gambling. Maybe a good gamble, but if for any reason your flight to Boston gets cancelled or severely delayed, and it is not related to your Virgin ticket, you forfeit the trans-Atlantic flight you paid for.

"On the day I go to London. I fly to Boston at seven in the morning. My flight out to London is at five at night. On the return I’m spending the night in Boston. I’ve then bought business class seats on Virgin from Boston to London for less than coach from Atlanta."

I would have thought it would be more sensible to do it the other way around. Overnight in Boston before your outward bound flight, rather than the return as there is far more at large in potentially losing a transAtlantic BC flight instead of a lot cheaper domestic one.