June flights

Judging by what I see I would book now anything in the $700-800 range on Aer Lingus. What are the exact dates?

hey hey kelly
are you doing roundtrip or one way? any other cities you'll be visiting if round trip, you can do multi-city, into one city out from another. when you see a great fare and comfortable with book it, making sure you add baggage cost and seat assignment. you are traveling at high season which will be busy and crowded, i would make sure you have hotels/apts available with your big group. what time is arrival, is there early checkin or baggage hold and departure time is not "dark o'clock am" early morning. early flights mean getting up extra early, packing up, checkout, transportation to airport (usually 3 hours ahead of flight). look at the flight details, cheaper doesn't always mean better, the length of flight, if layover how long, and if flight gets there late night inform hotels/apt you will arrive late and make sure someone is there and place not closed or have front desk available. don't know the dynamics and ages of the group and dates you want to fly.
we were in paris end of september this year, booked flights in early april but took a few days to find the accomodations we wanted, which ended up being further away than we liked. totally busy busy all around paris with conventions, fashion week, yellow vest protest, techno music parade, late french president chirac's memorial and funeral with many dignitaries, security everywhere.
families will be traveling at that time of year, so pack light and lots of patience. some things may not go according to plan, have plan B or C ready. book tickets to attractions early, many are date and time slots. you can only go as fast as the group can move. sit at a cafe or garden, relax, people watch, breathe in the france air and magic.
you and the gang will have a great time, been 3 times and still haven't seen enough.
aloha

I am flying out May 9th next year and booked my flights 3 months ago

My strategy is to begin shopping for airline tickets as soon as they become available, usually 10-11 months in advance. We end up with really good prices that way. This year we purchased our tickets in September for our vacation next August.
You're already inside that range, so unless there's some uncertainty about the dates, I'm thinking you should start looking right away. There might be some variation from week to week, but I believe that, in general, you'll get the best prices the further out you buy, with the prices rising as the date of your flight approaches.

Thanks everyone! We are watching daily and have alerts set. Sounds like we should book sooner rather than later due to peak season.

Our dates are leaving Friday June 19 from Seattle and returning July 4 or 5. We have our lodging booked already. We are starting in Paris for 4 days, then 5 in Normandy. Then we split up and half the group goes to Avignon while the others go to London.

I’m looking at open jaw for sure. Also looking at round trip London or Paris and taking trains between (trains seem as fast as flights door to door plus easier for the kids to move around). Ideally we want to all travel together on the way there but we could split up for the return flight since we will be in different locations.

The kids aren’t great with landings so trying to do non-stop flights if we can. One thing I found is there is only one flight from Seattle to Paris on June 19 which arrives at 8am the next morning. I’m a bit nervous on that with luggage storage(we have an Airbnb) and just keeping everyone awake all day with jet lag. That is making me like the London leg for getting there, even with the train time to get to Paris.

Your advice is super helpful! Thanks you!

Just FYI, by the time you get to Paris, after immigration/customs, it will probably be almost noon. On our trip this summer, we found all of our AirBnB hosts willing to work with us on arrival times. Even if we couldn't check in yet, they allowed us to store our bags for a few hours.