Booking Flights to/from Europe (timing)

In my opinion, I would not wait. Ticket prices will just increase, so if you have found tickets you feel are a good price, buy them and don't look back.

Anyone who names a specific time to buy tickets is just guessing. Someone, somewhere, may have said that February is the best time to book for summer travel and that advice keeps getting quoted, so now it is "everyone" saying it. But no one knows. Things have changed the past couple of years, with fares generally getting higher. There are fewer seats and the "summer sales" do not happen.

Several years ago I followed advice posted here to wait until 4 months before travel. We ended up paying $1200 more than if we had booked early as we usually do. Last year I tracked prices on my favorite airline for travel on specific dates in July. I started looking in December and the price to Switzerland was around $1550. Prices jumped to $1650 after Jan. 1 and then rose slowly but steadily to $1850. Never went beck down to December levels. ,

It could be different this year, or not.

Personally, I would not create a complicated itinerary with lots of extra stops to save a few hundred dollars. Those extra stops have hidden costs, like travel between airports, or maybe an overnight somewhere, and add time to your journey as well as the possibility of missed flights. You arrive at your first destination more tired and stressed than you would have been with more direct flights.

You have a good option in Delta, which is usually very competitive in price. Check for travel,on different days of the week if their website has a matrix. Often it is cheaper to fly on, say, Tuesday or Wednesday than Friday or Saturday.

And good luck!

It is not clear but it appears that you are proposing doing this all on NAS. Please look at the reviews of NAS on Skytrax. There have been a lot of negative reports about their long haul flights. Worse, there have been delays and interruptions with their Dreamliners on the long haul, in particular delays getting in a different airplane altogether that will then cause totally missed connections and possibly lost days on vacation. In addition, you are adding an additional layer of complexity what with having to connect in JFK.
I had researched NAS in regards to our own trip, Philadelphia area to Berlin and Copenhagen. And in spite of the initial savings of over $250 per ticket, decided it was not worth the worry nor the time and hassle of getting to and from JFK. Also, NAS is a completely budget carrier, and while this is usually okay for flights under a couple hours, might not be for a 9-10 hour flight.

Your biggest problem with price is also that you are flying to and from Atlanta, that costs more. I did some trials on momondo.com using 16 days from Jul 7 through July 23 (M out, W back), and with switching to Charlotte (to wither London or Manchester, and back from Barcelona) as an example the costs drop towards $200/ticket. I see larger drops using Fort Lauderdale, without bringing in NAS (and as a bonus, the return flight comes in Montreal, which I think means you will do US Customs and Passport there rather than here, allowing you to leave directly in FLL (I had found this for Toronto, and I would guess Montreal is the same, but have not looked it up)

Also check your days Mon-Tues-Wed flights tend to be lower priced.

As for will prices come down, anyone who could give a guaranteed answer to that could clean up in the stock market or sports.

Hi Jordan. My two cents worth.... I agree with Sasha to be very cautious of booking multiple / complicated tix. There is huge value in knowing that if a flight is delayed, it is the airline's problem, not yours. However, you seem very flexible; because of that, I would wait. It is very likely that prices to somewhere in Europe from Atlanta will go down sometime over the next few months. For instance, recently tix to Milan were in the $900 range for a week or so, while other Europe cities were $1300. If it were me, I would monitor for at least a month or two. Just my opinion... Enjoy your trip!

Thanks all for the posts.

So, riddle me this. If I make my flights from FLL-LON and BCN-FLL, with layovers in ATL, the tickets are $150 less/person (Hidden City, as I'm finding out about). If I book from ATL, it's the same exact flight number from ATL to Europe and back. What prevents me from just hopping on in ATL and skipping the FLL part? Will they cancel if I don't show there but do online check-in?

When you try to "hop on in Atlanta" you will discover that since you skipped the FLL flight they cancelled the rest of your trip! Don't try this trick!

On line check in is not the determining factor "body in seat" is the rule. You must get on the first flight or game over. The only flight you can ever risk skipping is the LAST one so in this case ATL to FLL and ONLY if you didn't check luggage (or get forced to gate check it) In theory they MIGHT come after you for that but it's a pretty rare occurance.

You do understand that July is the peak travel time for Europe and,THEREFORE, no bargains. With the consolidations, reductions in capacity, and better computer load managing programs, there are few surplus seats to be sold at the last hour. My recent experience is that the cheapest fare are eight, nine months out and rarely go down after that. There are always unpredictable one and two day spots sales but you do have to be lucky. Buy the ticket and move on.

I was looking at ITA Matrix weekly for flights from ATL into Budapest and home from Prague. Flights have been running $1050 most of the Fall for end of March and first of April.

Wouldn't you know that ClarkHoward.com mentioned a one day sale from ATL (and a few other large cities) for $728. I jumped on it. Clara Bonsenetta also put it in the Journal Constitution travel section. Since then, I spotted another one day sale at about $850 and they were about $950 one day last week.

If you've got to go mid Summer, you're just going to have to pay the price. Now, we have 3 airline alliances controlling the whole European route fares, and they've gotten better at controlling prices through supply. Unless their planes fly completely full, they're cancelling the supply of flights.

I would suggest you continue to watch the fares for a while longer. Hopefully the airlines are going to regroup and throw on some more airfare sales, even if they're just one day sales. Just be thankful you have Clark and Clara watching out for Atlanta and Southeast travelers going out of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

I was a little confused by all of the legs you are proposing. Are you looking at a "multi-city" intinerary, or are you trying to book single legs? Booking as multi-city will be cheaper than a lot of separate legs, and because you booked it all on one ticket, will cover you in case of a delay that causes you to miss a flight along the way. That being said, I have twice booked a round trip from Chicago to London, then got to and from the continent on budget airlines, but that was because of extraordinary price deals on the round trip ($117 each way when Virgin Atlantic first opened that route in 2007, for example). Doing it that way means you might have to wait for flight times, change airports, or other things that might not make it worth it for you. Bottom line, it's not going to get any cheaper as we approach peak travel season.

I booked our tickets. Flying into London, then out of Barcelona. Got them at almost as cheap as I found them before the spike. Flying out of an airport about 4 hours drive saves us ~$800. Thanks all for the help.

welcome JordanQ,

if it hasnt been brought up, having more layovers will reduce your time on the ground there.

I did the cheap flight on my first time. saved about 200 USD, but it cost me 6 hours more to get over there. If you cant spend alot (this is up to you) of time in a seat on a plane, then break it up but realize the cost.

now that i have that under my belt, i choose to fly non stop/direct since its offered here. Its not fun for a 10 hour flight, but it gets done and over with and im there.

happy trails.