How far in advance to book airline tickets from US to Europe?

If you think the price is fair, purchase the tickets and don't look back. Out of curiosity what prices are you currently getting?

Hi Michael, I'm finding ~$1500 into ZRH and out of CDG, to and from a small regional airport (TLH).

Our upcoming trip in June will be our fifth in the last several summers and the average advance time for ticket purchase for us has been seven months. That's right. 7 months. Only once out of those five trips did we not pay the absolute minimum price available that summer (I track these things) - that was 2009, when the economy went into the tank after we bought our tickets and a FEW offers were available in March that were $100 less than we paid in November. Buying early has not only gotten us good deals on tickets, but it has also freed us up to find the best low-cost lodgings early (a real necessity for renting apartments, for example). Note; buying very early is more likely to be beneficial when using lower-cost airlines like IcelandAir and Aer Lingus, than the big-name carriers who tend to open their pricing at a mid-range level and then fluctuate from there.

Hi Clare. Mid-July is summer travel season and $1,500 sounds normal (whatever normal is nowadays). The last 2 times I traveled in the summer, 2008 and 2010, I paid $1,400 and $1,300, respectively. If $1,500 is too high for you, wait a little while and see if prices drop any. Have you looked at flying in and out of U.S. airports other than ones in Florida, like Newark? Sometimes you can find cheaper flights. Of course then you have to get to the airport which costs money and time. Since St. Louis's airport is hardly international anymore, I look at flights out of Chicago or the East Coast and I find that I at least break even.

There used to be a guy on this board who claimed there was a "sweet spot" about 90 days in advance and the best time to purchase was around then, 2-3 months in advance. I followed his advice to wait and ended up paying over $1400 extra for our tickets (for 4). so I have a bad experience with that "gamble." The idea that there are "summer sales" for travel in high season is outdated. Prices will only drop if there are lots of unsold seats. Maybe you can check on that on an airline website that lets you check seating charts to see how full the planes are. But I wouldn't wait too long, uless you see lots of unsold seats on the planes.

Also that will be peak travel time for the Olympics. The increased traffic into London probably will displace traffic into other airports such as Paris and Amsterdam. So the demand through out central Europe probably will be substantially increased.

There was an article on this subject a few weeks ago with a link on this website via the "Daily European Headlines" o n the homepage. The link is gone, but if I remember correctly it was saying that the "sweet spot" for buying tickets keeps getting farther out. I think it said in general for international travel the sweet spot is now 12 - 14 weeks out. You're already past that! I would definitely buy now.

I agree with the previous post. The best time to purchase airlines tickets is probably past for you. I will tell you what happened to us. I was checking airfares from US to Athens, greece and then back from Paris. We are traveling May 18 thru Jun 5. I started checking last fall and the rates were horrible over $2,000 and then they started to drop a little in November to maybe $1800. One early Saturday morning towards the end of November I just happened to check and low and behold the rate was $987. I grabbed it quickly and never looked back. Well, I have checked once in a while just because I am curious but it never went below $1280 until last week and it is now $1100 but the seat selection is abyssmal-very few left-especially on the Paris to USA flight. So in my case it never dropped much until about 2-3 months out and then not as much as that one weeked in Nov. I still cannot figure out what happened. My guess is that they were probably working with a major tour agency and wanted to give this agency a really good deal on flights just for the weekend as maybe this agency was running a big promotion?!? I don't know. Good Luck!