Prices to Europe?

If people knew this, we'd all play the lottery. IMO, prices are only going to go up as more people travel. And 1800r/t for July is pretty good. As I've said before, until we hit a recession and people scale back travel, the fares will stay high.

Very true. I should have purchased when tickets were $1300 a month ago.

we go to Europe at least once a year and we've found it's always cheapest at our opening booking day which is 330 days from our return trip home. I start pricing about one month before we can book (know that you can't see your dates before 330 days from your return trip back home, but i enter in the same days of the week we will be traveling)-- that way I know the trends.

We are booking flights into Germany and out of Amsterdam for Dec. 15-29 and our booking day is in 8 days - right now the prices are about $800 for coach, $1089 for Delta Comfort+, and $1300 for Premium Select - we hope they stay like that and if they do, we will book in 8 days for December.

I put a countdown app on my phone so I know when that 330 day mark is. We've been booking this way for years and have always been very happy. We went to Austria and Germany last month for the Xmas Markets and we booked in Feb of 2022 for Dec at our 330 day mark and we got Premium Select/Business Class for $1020.

I had been checking for Europe flights for July also. I was about to give up but thought I’d try that Tuesday morning thing. Sure enough…$300 less. Who knows….?
Yeah, that $1300 was pretty good…Good luck!

Are you using google flights to search? Where are you flying in and out of? We have found that Lisbon and Madrid seem to have more and cheaper options. Porto is the most expensive to fly in and out of from PDX.

Also try the neat trick where you say your destination is Europe, and fares for all different cities appear on a map

All you can do is check different days of the week and different airports and check running in the opposite direction and if you flight ticket includes Spain to Portugal consider an open jaw ticket and a discount airline from Spain to Portugal.

I’d also check prices out of Seattle and Vancouver BC. It might be worth the drive if there is a big enough price difference. You told us your dated, but not your arrival and departure cities.

Erica, I'd keep an eye on things for now and get fare notifications from skyscanner, which will email you when prices change. Yes, supply and demand may keep prices high but you never know.

ChinaLake67, we've also fared (pun intended) well by booking 330 or so days in advance. Two premium economy tickets to Edinburgh for $2800 total.

I am showing Google direct flights Seattle to London for your dates at $1k. Easy to catch budget flights from London to Spain and Portugal. We too love our direct open jaw flights, but have found big savings by just getting to Europe and then catching a budget flight to our desired destination. We live on west coast of Fl, but often make the three hour drive to fly from Miami for better $ savings (sort of like Portland to Seattle).

I'm so excited! Thanks for the tips and help! This flight from Seattle is perfect at 1,100 travel to London!

ChinaLake and BigMike, I've also purchased tickets at that time and have never been disappointed. I bought my tickets to Scotland back in June of 2022 for an upcoming May trip, and paid $900 for Main Cabin. Now the lowest price is almost $1300.

And I do agree that sometimes it pays to look for fares outside your "home" airport, but you also have to weigh the cost/inconvenience of doing that. I usually fly out of MSP rather than the small Duluth airport because the flights are more convenient (although generally the price is not that much lower). But there are regular airport shuttles that will take me from DLH to MSP for a reasonable fee (cheaper than driving and parking). So make sure you factor in all of that. :)

Flights are relatively pricey right now! Just paid $950 per person for 4 one-way Munich to Seattle. Could have gone a couple hundred cheaper, but those ticket were completely non-refundable and non-changeable. Plus paid ungrades to exit row.

Normally I wait to buy return tickets until closer to the date and get good deals, but I read a couple of expert prognosticators who said likely not coming down and maybe up.

Felt pretty rich, four one-ways sniffing $4k. But then again it's halfway around the planet .....

Also, miles tickets seem to remain at normal prices. Good value using miles right now.

Has anyone flown Aer Lingus? Prices are lower through Aer Lingus for summer travel to Europe. Maybe I can stay a day or two in Dublin before heading down to Madrid.

Here is our itinerary:
6/18/2023 PDX PDX
6/19/2023 PDX Madrid
6/20/2023 Madrid Madrid
6/21/2023 Madrid Madrid
6/22/2023 Madrid Lisbon
6/23/2023 Lisbon Lisbon
6/24/2023 Lisbon Lisbon
6/25/2023 Lisbon Algarve
6/26/2023 Algarve Algarve
6/27/2023 Algarve Sevilla
6/28/2023 Sevilla Sevilla
6/29/2023 Sevilla Sevilla
6/30/2023 Sevilla Evora
7/1/2023 Evora Nazare
7/2/2023 Nazare Nazare
7/3/2023 Nazare Coimbra
7/4/2023 Coimbra Douro Valley
7/5/2023 Douro Valley Porto
7/6/2023 Porto Porto
7/7/2023 Porto Fly to London
Husband has tickets to Iron Maiden in London so spending a few days there and then flying back to Portland...

A good friend and his Dutch family just did a similar itinerary taking in a lot of Portugal and Seville.

They wanted more time in the Algarve, less time in Seville. And they enjoyed two nights in Gibraltar hiking all over that weird giant British outpost of a granite slab.

If I was generally advising, I'd say break the trip up a little more into longer and shorter stays. Do one of the longer in the late-middle part of the trip when you're settled in and over jet lag.

Aer Lingus is fine BTW

Actually, here is our most up to date itinerary...

6/18/2023 PDX PDX
6/19/2023 PDX Madrid
6/20/2023 Madrid Madrid
6/21/2023 Madrid Madrid
6/22/2023 Madrid Sevilla
6/23/2023 Sevilla Sevilla
6/24/2023 Sevilla Sevilla
6/25/2023 Sevilla Tangier
6/26/2023 Tangier Tangier
6/27/2023 Tangier Algarve
6/28/2023 Algarve Algarve
6/29/2023 Algarve Algarve
6/30/2023 Algarve Lisbon
7/1/2023 Lisbon Lisbon
7/2/2023 Lisbon Lisbon
7/3/2023 Lisbon Nazare
7/4/2023 Nazare Porto
7/5/2023 Porto Porto
7/6/2023 Porto Porto
7/7/2023 Porto

7/8/2023 Fly to London
7/8-7/11 LONDON
Fly back to Portland, Oregon 7/11/22

We’ve flown Aer Lingus before and have chosen that routing for our trip this summer. It’s a nice airline with immigration control in Dublin for US passengers returning to the US. There will be no long immigration lines when you land in Seattle.

Some summers when we’ve spent a lot of time in a warm country I like to return home through London, Dublin or Copenhagen for a few cooling off days before I fly back to California. To spend time in our cool city we book our return flight from that city with an inexpensive one way flight up to our cool city. For example we once flew open jaw from LAX to Marseilles, then at the end we took a separately booked flight from Marseilles to LHR. A few days later we took our return leg of our flight, LHR to LAX.

Mona thank you for the two solid tips, easy immigration and customs return when flying from Dublin on Aer Lingus, and choosing a departure gateway in the north if you have done your whole trip in the south.

OP, I haven't been to Tangier in more than 30 years, but have been reading good things. Seems to have been evolving from the Tijuana* of Morocco to a more interesting hipper city. Fun choice.

*Tijuana of course has also evolved in the past 30 years, less of a messy border gateway and more of the cool stuff that makes Tijuana cool.

I'm seeing $1438 for basic economy on your dates into Madrid. Barcelona is just a couple of dollars less. Barcelona is about the same too.

It appears that traveler demand for European travel for Summer, 2023 is going to be high. People are tired of being cooped up during and after the Pandemic. Airline prices are all based on supply and demand.

I don't know that prices will be coming down. I always look at where I go. Then I look for alternative airports coming and going with cheaper flights (in close proximity.) I'll also look at Matrix ITA's calendar to see if there are any cheaper dates in a month where flights are less expensive. Only cheaper flight close to you is $1,197 from SEATAC to Madrid on 6/26/2023.

Sometimes we have to suck it up and pay the price. We usually travel in Spring and Fall when demand is not so high.

I love all of these tips! Super helpful!

I wish I could travel in the fall. My husband and I are teachers so we can only travel during the high season, unfortunately!

If I can only come up with summer flights from SFO to Europe costing ca. $1800 r/t in Basic Economy, certainly not an ideal or envious price, don't like it but still will have to put up with it.

Google Flights is interesting to play around with, changing dates and destinations. Summer flights from Washington to Edinburgh are about twice as expensive as in January.

Call it dumb luck, but our premium economy flights that totaled $2800 are now $4600. All I can say is booking almost 330 days in advance has worked for us. BUT, if you play around with the dates it's only $3300.

This is why I always book the flights first and then the hotel and so forth.

Erica hi

I feel you about only summers. I'm a teacher too and as such restricted to June through the first few days in October when fall quarter usually starts. Looking forward to a wide open calendar when I retire and my kid is safely squirreled away at college.

A few things re finding deals.

Search full months on skyscanner.com

Search full countries on skyscanner (so instead of Madrid search Spain, instead of Lisbon search Portugal, etc)

Search from nearby cities to which you can get a cheap flight. If you are in SEA try SFO (or all of California on Skyscanner), SLC, DEN, Vancouver, and Calgary. And PDX, which has fewer flights but sometimes a great deal. You can often find cheap seats to these gateway separately from the transatlantic flight (don't forget Southwest!)

Keep an eye on West Jet and Condor. Condor is a bit pricey right now, but West Jet is pretty good out of Canadian gateways.

Think about July if possible. July is a lot cheaper on average than June right now. I'm seeing some flights out of SFO to the Iberian peninsula under $450.

If you don't want to pay a premium, think mostly about getting over the pond, and then think about if transfer to places you want to go is worth it. Maybe there's a cheap flight from SEA to Paris or London, and you don't mind a few days in those places and then a short flight or leisurely train trip.

Dig and dig. There are a few diamonds among the turnips, but they are few and far between right now.

Think about whether Iberia is your non-negotiable dream, or if you would be interested in visiting wherever the cheaper flights take you, My family goes to Europe every summer, and often it's "well Zurich a great deal, and this flight home from Venice is
dirt cheap, so let's plan a trip linking those places together." We generally aren't disappointed.

If you schedule and locations are concrete, just pay up and don't look back. You are buying your most central desires, which are certainly worth something.

happy hunting :)