Best airfare for a trip 4 months away...sticker shocked at the rates now!

I'd suggest you share your travel dates and your preferred route. Also indicate if there is any flexibility with your dates or airports. Perhaps someone will have an idea.

June is peak. What prices are you seeing. We are good at working the crystal ball but it is kind of foggy at the moment.

I have used third party booking sights for trips to Europe many times. So far, so good. Have not had a problem.

Rates I've found are about $1,800 flying in to France (CDG to Toulouse), and out of Bilbao, Spain in late June-early July. I just wondered if perhaps I was missing some lesser priced options. We will likely do our own planning of sights to see, with a flexible itinerary - or else I'd be interested in the RS Basque country tour. We don't have quite that many days to spend in Spain, unfortunately.

Laurie

Is Norweigian air operating somewhere nr u? Of course use flexible dates and alternate airports. Gd luck.
Also if u can book with Turkish airlines, fares are better. U will stop in Istanbul but it may be worth your while.

Flying out of Bilbao may increase your costs substantially. Try flights out of Madrid or Barcelona to see if the savings are enough to justify having to head back to one of those large cities on the next-to-last day of your trip. Toulouse may also be an issue. Last year, Nice was cheaper for me.

Edited to add: I just did some very quick checking on Google flights, and it seems that what's really costing you is flying out of Detroit (at least I'm guessing that's the airport you've been using). If you can manage to get to Chicago, the fare will probably drop a lot.

Have you tried the Toronto airport? And are you looking at google flights? I just looked there and found flights for 600-ish RT in June. Its possible you could find a cheap domestic european flight back to Paris from Spain that allows you to do a RT from one airport. The open jaw will be more expensive...
EasyJet and Ryanair in europe are cheap carriers that sometimes have domestic flights for ~30-50 OW

Before you book your airfare through a 3rd party site, please be aware that it should work out just fine, until, it doesn't......
What do I mean? If there are no changes needed, if there are no irregular operations, if there are no connections to worry about, flights purchased through a reputable 3rd party should work just fine. However, there is that moment when you need a change, something unusual upsets the plan at the last moment, or a connection is missed. At that point, having to deal with the 3rd party instead of the airline can be quite frustrating for people.

I would also encourage you to stop by the tripadvisor travel forum, air travel forum and just look through some of the postings about people's experiences with a few very shady 3rd party agencies. Avoid the ones described there at all costs.

You don't say where you are in Michigan, but I'll assume you're flying out of Detroit. The midwest is sometimes difficult to fly to all points in Europe to/from. Delta has sucked up 3/4th of the retail market there, and we know legacy carriers are seldom the least expensive on international flights. There again, Spain is not the easiest place to get to/from North America.

You can fly on WOW Airlines out of Detroit and into Barcelona on Mondays in June for $800 round trip, stopping in Iceland for a connecting flight.

Living in the middle of Missouri, I have learned to be creative when it comes to getting cheaper tickets to Europe, especially when the whole family decides to take a trip. Here is a suggestion. Look at flying out of an East Coast Hub such as NYC or BOSTON. For example, JFK to CDG $581.00 in June return on AA. or choose multi-city and fly back from MAD for $617.00 You can buy a connecting ticket from DTT to NYC ($1,418.00) OR you could buy a separate ticket from DTT to NYC for $200-$300. The only catch in doing this is that you MUST make sure you have a HUGE connecting time in NYC. If you miss your flight in NYC the airline has no obligation to get you to your destination and could charge you a walk-up fee (as you are not on a connecting itinerary - it will cost you thousands! ). Also look into connecting into other European Cities such as Dublin or London. Sometimes that can work out cheaper. You can always use a European Carrier as a hop to Paris or Madrid.

I live in Michigan (Grand Rapids) and seldom find good rates from there. Instead, I check Chicago, Detroit, or even Windsor.
www.google.com/flights lets me see alternate cities to fly into, and what those prices are.

Example: June 11 to 25, GRR to Paris return is $1500, but Chicago to Paris return is $968. I can take a train or bus to Chicago or park my car at a park and fly hotel near there.
There are lots of combinations, but flexibility and research generally pays off.

Please, before you book thru Vayama, do a search on the Trip Advisor Air Travel forum for tales of woe.

I booked my flight the first week in January returning on June 7, ie, 39 days on the ground, did not use any 3rd party companies, I never do. I book directly with the airlines, this time Br Airways, Economy, r/t, OAK to London Gatwick , Gatwick to OAK, all for $500.

I always book through the airline website, rarely have I found tickets cheaper that would make me forego the peace of mind by buying direct rather than via a third party.

Also, as has previously been stated, Bilbao is the real spanner in the works. It's not a well serviced airport particularly for transatlantic flights, you'll need to fly from a larger, 'mainstream' airport.

Kakak is a great site searching all the others.

Sadly, flying out of Detroit is very expensive.

I've found flying to secondary cities in France is cost prohibitive. I'd consider flying into Amsterdam or Paris and catching a low cost European flight from there to Toulouse. You're likely to transfer anyway. I think you can save several hundred or more by shopping and booking yourself. Flights are fairly expensive right now. I usually keep an eye on prices and options then purchase between three and two months out unless I spot a really good deal.

Play around on Google Flights. You can enter specific itineraries and track flight prices with email notifications of changes. When you find an acceptable price and it comes time to purchase your tickets, do so directly from the airline so that if there are problems en route, you are not dealing with a third party. It also might be cheaper to fly into a gateway city (e.g., CDG in Paris) and then take a train to get to Toulouse; same for the return trip from Bilbao (train to Madrid?).

For you to use Google Flights effectively, you need to start with some specific dates, even if they are not 100%. You can click on Dates See More to get a date grid that will show dates and price changes for each day. If your dates are not set in stone, you may be able to adjust them to get a better price.

It looks like you want to start your trip in Toulouse and end it in Bilbao. Trying to book all the way through to and back from those locations will probably cost a lot more than making separate reservations for the intra-European flights.

Not knowing your exact dates, it appears that you could save hundreds of dollars at that time of year by flying RT nonstop Chicago -> Madrid or Paris on many dates in late June and early July. The prices showing at the moment are about $1000 or less.

Flying from Detroit increases the RT price to Madrid by $590 - $710 depending on the day with no nonstop options. To Paris the increase is $320 - $490 depending on the day for nonstop flights. That's so much that flying from Chicago, it would still probably be cheaper even if you had to spend the night at ORD.

You can also search for times and prices for separate flights Paris or Madrid -> Toulouse and Bilbao -> Paris or Madrid. For late June and early July I saw very cheap prices ($19 - $36) for Madrid to Toulouse, but they are late in the day. The ones from Paris are 2-3 times as much with more inconvenient times.

The Bilbao -> Madrid or Paris timing is much better, assuming you go the day before your flight back to the States. The prices for Madrid range from $39 - $54 and those to Paris range from $43 - $131.

The train is always an alternative, especially for the arrival day. Madrid to Toulouse is about 7.5 hours. From Paris, it's about 5.5 - 7 hours. The train might be a better and more fun option and get you to Toulouse faster, but it could be more expensive. At least you wouldn't have to wait around the airport all day.

From Bilbao to Madrid by train is about 6 hours. To Paris CDG it's about 13 hours, so I wouldn't even consider that an option unless I wanted to see the countryside.

Hi,
I live in Michigan and are you going to Paris first? We are flying direct from ORD to Madrid and then a hop over to Lisbon this spring. Then flying back from Toulouse thru Madrid with a direct to ORD.

If you are anywhere near the west side of the state, or would like to spend the night here, you can come here and we could take you to the bus in Michigan City to flight out of ORD in June. I have a big house.
This is on a code share with AA with Iberia Air. Our first time with this airline... love new experiences.

Just a note that for medium-sized international airports like Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle and Denver, for summer travel to Europe one must look 6-9 months out. Only those near LA, SF, Chicago, and the Atlantic Seaboard have the luxury of waiting.

Wow, thank you all for your insights! And tgreen, thanks for your kind offer! We are in SE Michigan, so traveling to Chicago would add a lot of time to the long travel day/night. I've continued searching, and flip-flopping arrival/departure cities...and made a discovery about flying out of Windsor. Flying Lufthansa from Windsor-Toronto and then to Europe is a lot less expensive - like $1110 instead of the high of $1800. Considering that we'll be buying multiple tickets, that is a significant difference! Whew!

Any experience taking this route?

Thanks again,
Laurie

I don't have experience with that route, but I have flown from Canada (Vancouver BC) to Europe instead of Seattle to Europe before for similar types of savings and it worked well. Make sure that you are also considering whether your purchase is in US or Canandian dollars.

I’ll just add that I took the RS Basque tour last year and found it difficult to find good flights from Bilbao. However, from Bilbao there are a number of inexpensive flights to London. I bought a separate one-way ticket to London and spent a couple of nights there before flying home. This saved me several hundred dollars. You might see what other cities have good connections to Bilbao and go from there.

Windsor to Toronto is probably Air Canada.

Flying Lufthansa from Windsor-Toronto and then to Europe is a lot less
expensive - like $1110 instead of the high of $1800.

If the fare is CAD $1100 & not US$, you're saving EVEN MORE MONEY!! Excellent.

You need to eye the fights like a hawk. My trip is June to the beginning of July and I got a great price but I really was watching flights for awhile and wasn't particular on the city I fly into. Ideally I wanted to fly to Rome or Naples via somewhere somewhere else. I knew I didn't want to fly Alitalia unless it was a huge savings. Those flights were extremely expensive even if I were to buy a ticket say from LAX TO LHR or CDG. I ended up finding a reasonably priced nonstop fight from LAX to ZUR. Will have a full day in Zurich to help with jet leg and while I didn't plan on going to ZUR, I am going to see Lake Lucerne which I now really want to see. I will also have a full day coming back before I fly home. Using that to go see the Matterhorn.

I use Momondo, Kayak, and Skiplagged. I also signed up for Scott's Cheap Flights (the free account though) but that has never helped me as most of the updates he has are for flights in the off season which I could only do if I quit my job.

Think about your non negotiables as well. I am not willing to save money to have extremely long layovers...just cannot do it or have more than 1 layover. I also insist on choosing my seat and will check in my suitcase (I know the large backpack is a good idea in Europe but I tend to have back pain often so I would rather just wheel a suitcase). Wow! and Norwegian often have cheap rates just to get you there, but when you add in choosing a seat and checking in, I found that they were always more than a larger international carrier. Alitalia now follows Wow! and Norwegian's model. That model though seems to be the direction many American based airlines have started to use.