Goodness gracious me. I think this is the probably the first time in years (even compared to last year), that I've found airline fares to Europe to be exceptionally high.
We were looking at fares to London this coming July and I gasped at Continental's fares! Are you all finding the same? Should I book now or wait a bit? Yeah, I know that this is a silly question, but I'm still in the shock mode.
They are higher than in past years, and I think there are fewer flights, so the price is going to stay high.
I've been looking for flights to France since January. The price kept going up. I travel in October. I booked on Lufthansa last week. I just couldn't take the chance there would be no seats. United sold out for the flight- after it went from $998 to $2400 for the same flight. By the way, I paid $1079 DEN-BSL. It's as cheap and convenient a flight as I could get.
Bite the bullet, book now, especially if you are going in July...it's getting late.
Another example:
I tried to use my FF miles for a trip to England for this May, starting in January I called and called, and couldn't get any seats....on any of the Star Alliance...so I had to move that trip to September!
Eli, I feel your pain.
Steve, would you mind sharing what fares to Paris you have seen drop? We waited to buy our tickets to Paris for June based on your advice about the "sweet spot" 90 days in advance. Since January I've seen the prices only go up. Now (if we still go) we'll be paying an extra $900 for our family of 4 over what we would have paid had we bought them before Christmas.
aww man...i shouldn't have clicked on this...or the last link above. well, actually, i guess i should have, because i'm one of those people waiting for a last minute deal, and perhaps i needed a good dose of reality. i've been looking every day for four months now for a flight from NYC (and surrounding) to London (or Dublin), and it is not going down. we hoped to pay less than half of the prices we're seeing right now. this is going to be one expensive vacation. oh well. it is just money, right? gulp.
Hi Eli, I agree with you! I've been so sad watching the fares go up and up. I was waiting based on the advice in the thread "Talk me down or Tell me to jump" a while back in the Transportation section of the Helpline. The consensus was that 8 wks out was the best time to buy. Not this year apparently. The prices are higher than I've ever seen in over 20 yrs of flying to Europe. We're going San Francisco ~ Paris, so the $1300 fare on Virgin Atlantic that Steve just mentioned doesn't help us. We're gonna be forced to pay the high fare :(
I always find it amazing that the posters with the "low airfares" never seem to point out that the "deal" was NOT for the high summer travel season. You need to compare "apples and apples" not "apples and oranges" Airfares for Summer tradiionally are higher then airfares for "shoulder season" So if we are paying $900 for May, then figure it's going to be little higher for July and if the OP is looking at dates around a holiday (either here or there) then it's possibly even higher. (Without exact dates it's hard to say)
Also, we don't know what the "gasp" was for $1,000, $2,000??? I think that realistically for a decent flight you are probably going to be looking at around $1,000 and up for summer travel this year. The airlines are finally wising up and have dropped a lot of flights they just couldn't afford to fly.
As general rule, the closer you go after a certain point in time airfares go UP. The airlines make lots of money off last minute business travelers. I would not wait much more then 6 to 8 weeks prior to my travel date to book if it were me. (However, just like everyone else on here, we can't really predict the future)
I paid $1100 per person for Orlando to LGW for June/July. I bought my tickets at the end of February, but it looks like the fares haven't really decreased. Yet the seats have rapidly filled up on my flights. Since there will be three of us traveling I'm glad I bought them when I did.
Steve, you also always (at least in the 6 months I have been reading here) state that fares drop 2-4 months ahead of the date, with a "sweet spot" 90 days out.
I think you need to qualify that recommendation or add a caveat, because that advice doesn't work for all routes---particularly from the west coast.
Seattle people have pretty uniformly said that prices do not drop, especially closer to the date for summer travel. I wish I had known that before instead of listening to you. As I said, we are now looking at paying an additional $900 for our trip and you and "hope" all you want that fares will still drop but we've run out of time.
Maybe you can find an isolated fare here and there from SFO or LAX that did drop (and maybe in the middle of the night). But that won't work for most of us. By the time I add a flight from where I live to SFO, I've not only lengthened and complicated our trip, but the extra cost of getting there negates any savings in the fare.
You seem to treat this like a game of finding the "best" fare even if it involves complicated routes with multiple stops and/or interesting (out of the way) origination or destination points. But most of us---especially if traveling with kids---just want an easy route with hopefully one stop that will get us where we want to go. If that destination is Paris, I don't much want to fly to SFO or drive to Vancouver BC or fly into Ireland to get there.
I think you need to take that into consideration when you post your advice, since you have "expert" status with your 4000+ posts.
Carol, we have travelled on July 3rd and actually had watched the fares (three years ago though), for weeks until we got a deal we could not pass up! We saved about $300 on each ticket.
Last year we were going to the Caribbean in August and again, the fares were not looking too good, but one morning my husband saw a fare for the days we wanted and he grabbed it. Again, saved over $250 each per person.
But this time around I am getting the impression that things won't be so sweet. We generally fly Continental (they're way better than AA), and out of Houston.
Try working with a travel agent. Ours (a friend's dad) saved us $500 over anything I could find on my own. He told us about a few tricks, and because we are flexible on our dates, it worked to our advantage. We still ended up paying $1036 - includes his $50 fee - per ticket for Birmingham to Hannover. Last fall, they were $450 or so out of New Orleans, but I wanted to see if they would go down. They didn't. Oh boy, they didn't!
As far as comparing "apples to apples" and not oranges, I've also found that most of the emails I receive from airlines and other travel sites about "sale fares" are misleading since the true price is much higher than initally stated once I click through and the taxes and airport fees, etc. are added on later in the process. It's very disheartening.
I bought my round-trip tickets to London in early February for a June/July trip when I saw the prices had dropped some from December. I paid about $1050 from LAX. Since then my actual flights have gone up a few hundred dollars and the seats available are not ideal.
I don't think I got a bargain, but I'm glad I bought when I did since I have been able to make hotel and car reservations and -- not a small thing -- actually get excited and look forward to the trip!
My in-laws have been looking for flights to Germany this July, couldn't find anything less than $1400/ticket from Atlanta, even with stopovers. The flights they were looking at were 90% booked already, so they scrapped the trip. Last year, my sister was able to get tickets through Atlanta to Dublin in June for less than $500/ticket.
Some of the airlines are also scrapping their buddy passes.
We're going north this year (Baltic) so I decided to travel in July/August. This may be the last time I do that. I've got a bunch of fare alerts set up and good deals can be had in May or September (my normal travel times) but nothing in the summer.
I jumped on a direct flight to Copenhagen a few weeks ago. I checked one of my alerts and sure enough it costs more today for a two-stop flight than I paid for the direct flight (8 hour vs. 13 hour trip).
I rarely see flights go down in prices over time from the West Coast. There are fewer and fewer non-stops to Europe now which causes the Mid/East Coast flights to fill up. My old standby SFO-LHR UA 954 seems to always be full and Aer Lingus stopped the great SFO-DUB non-stop in Sept :(
My rule of thumb is if the flight is under $1000/rt book it if it fits your schedule. You might lose a $100-$200 if it drops but most likely it will go much, much higher very quickly.
Another thing that has made airfares rise is the new passenger duty tariffs the UK has decided to impose.
It's outrageous and scheduled to go up again
What is Air Passenger Duty (APD)?
APD is an excise duty which is charged on the carriage, from a UK airport, of chargeable passengers on chargeable aircraft.
Until 31 October 2009 there were four rates of duty.
Standard rates:
* £20 for specified European destinations
* £80 for all other destinations
Reduced rates:
* £10 for specified European destinations
* £40 for all other destinations
From 1 November 2009 a four destination band structure based on geographical distance from London applies, each having two rates of duty depending upon the class of travel, so there are eight different rates of duty
Bands are mostly based on the distance between London and the capital city of the destination country/territory.
Standard rates:
Band A (0 - 2,000 miles) £22
Band B (2,001 - 4,000 miles) £90
Band C (4,001 - 6,000 miles) £100
Band D (over 6,000 miles) £110
Reduced rates:
Band A (0 - 2,000 miles) £11
Band B (2,001 - 4,000 miles) £45
Band C (4,001 - 6,000 miles) £50
Band D (over 6,000 miles) £55
We originally wanted to fly into Milan or Paris for our-end-of-May through June trip. One Saturday morning in February I was looking around on fare compare, and up came a fare to Zurich for $694 r/t from San Francisco on US Airways! Since we were at the very start of planning our vacation, I was able to adapt our plans easily-
Mary---if you still plan to head to Milan and travel in Italy after landing in Zürich, you can get a very good special fare on the train tickets if you buy them now. The usual fare is 92 CHF (in 2d class, which is what we always use in Switzerland.) But there are a limited number of seats offered at 30 CHF each. We bought these for our June trip---flying in Zürich and going to Italy. On the 4 round-trip tickets, I saved 496 CHF, or close to $500. Just by spending a few minutes booking the tickets at sbb.ch (use rail.ch for English).
I'm just trying to get to NYC next month and am shocked at how airfares are! Much higher than I've ever paid. Eli like you I'm looking at a Continental flight and the prices just refuse to come down, with my trip 6 weeks away.
I purchased our tickets in Feb SFO to Florence / Paris to SFO on United for travel in May. Using Kayak and watching almost everyday ..United dropped rate to $926 RT excluding taxes one night and we didn't hesitate. Rate was gone the next day. Seats were disappearing quickly as I booked on line @ the United site.
Also, I have to agree with Sasha's post re Steve's input on airfares.
Check the airfares daily - when you see a drop for
the route you want, book it. Good Luck.
They are higher than I have ever seen them!
But, three of my children just scored round-trip tickets Boston - Vienna for May 18th to June 4th on British Airways, via Mobissimo.com for $771 pP, so take heart and keep looking! Only draw-back: they will have a 6 hr lay-over at Heathrow Airport . . But they are young, they can handle it ;-)) I hate Heathrow with a passion . .
"i've been looking every day for four months now for a flight from NYC (and surrounding) to London (or Dublin), and it is not going down. we hoped to pay less than half of the prices we're seeing right now. this is going to be one expensive vacation. oh well. it is just money, right? gulp."
Tracy, I don't know when you're traveling, but Delta has been running good deals to Dublin this month from NYC. mid 4- and 500's RT.
"Also, I have to agree with Sasha's post re Steve's input on airfares."
Actually, since you mention it, I do not think those posts are entirely fair. A lot of people here like to put a lot of heat on Steve.
Look at the way those posts are deliberately worded to make it look like Steve is solely at fault for costing some poor family out there an extra $900+ on their luxury Euro travel. Come on.
This is also, I might add, basically in contradiction to the popular complaint about Steve, which is that he is usually recycling other advice from the rest of the internet. I mean, which is it? Did he give uniquely bad advice here, or did he repeat the same basic wisdom that we've all read about airfare all over the entire internet already?
And 4000+ posts or not, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Airfare is a matter that is tricky and eludes even "experts."
Actually I think it is a little of both --- repeats bad advice.
I have argued repeatedly that giving advice about waiting is foolish given that the adviser does not have any risk. Easy to say, Wait, the price will go down. If it does -- great, look how smart I am. If it doesn't -- it is not my fault. Maybe there should be a ban on predicting airline prices.
Which bring me to the other point that I have argued. One should be posting from their personal experience. Not what you can find on the internet, steal from other postings, read in guide books, or can quote for other "experts." We should be posting what our experience is and not what someone else experience might be.
I have posted several that I have never gotten the fare alert to work for me and never seen the so called, 90 day sweet spot even when I am flexible. So lets just post what we know and not what we think we know.
I've been checking flights for over a month and at the same time trying to earn enough miles to just redeem the ticket with miles.
I noticed that prices from ATL to Paris and London have dropped from between $1100/$1300 down to $850/$950. That's a pretty big dip but my dates are for Sept not peak summer time.
I hope prices continue to drop or at least steady.
Many people have mentioned finding a deal online and then booking directly with the airline. Do most airlines match whatever deals you can find online?
I think it's unfair to blame Steve. Whether he recycles info or not, whether he's an expert or not, we all should do our own research.
As for the topic at hand, I've been watching fares from Cleveland to Paris since last year for travel this September. I booked last week at $784/ticket. It pays to look around at multiple websites, as the price varies, often by $100+ dollars for the exact same flight.
Some of the websites (priceline, expedia etc..) also partake in the online cashback rebate programs, which also earned me $48. Ebates is what I used. I don't know if we're able to post that kind of stuff, and I apologize if we are not. I have no vested interest, just thought I'd pass along a little tidbit of info.
"Caveat emptor" does not apply, as there is neither buy nor seller here.
A better phrase would be the old adage that "free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it---nothing."
