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Airfares are very unstable and unpredictable as long as the dollar declines and oil goes up. My personal opinion is that you will not see substantial reduction this summer from current prices. Remember airlines don't care where the RT starts as long as the seat is filled. And the Europeans are filling those seats because we are so cheap for them. Was skiing last week and nearly half of my seats mates on the lifts were Brits and Irish excited about how cheap everything was.

I was in this same position watching airfare flucuate every day for our trip to italy. Go to Kayak.com and set up an alert. You will get an email every day watching the fare.

For me, it was a nerve wracking hassle, and when I observed a value that seemed to be on the low end of my fare watch, I purchased.

We went ahead and bought our tickets about a month ago. We usually tend to wait almost last minute to buy tickets (in the past) but this year decided not to play that game.

Got a reasonable fare with Continental and gave up miles on AA because the savings for our family of four overall was over $500. That savings went towards an apartment rental.

Don't wait too long!

I thought I was crazy spending $1200 return to London in May (I booked in December) - but I looked the other day and my exact flights are now sitting at $4000 return... if I chose not to go direct it would be cheaper - but $4000 for one flight?? Yikes!

Thanks everyone. I just purchased my tickets last night. I think I got a great price and will not look online again for fear of a lower price! It is so funny to me what a "good price" is today. Yikes! It is a lot of money.

Anyway, thank you all. I decided to move forward in large part because of your advice.

IMO airfares fluctuates according to the gas price. Another factor is how long before you purchase the tickets.
I would wait a bit and watch the gas price.

The tickets I purchased in late October for mid-May (with the same connections) are now 2750 more per ticket! Ouch!

Be sure to check the airlines' websites. We priced our flights all over the place and found that our cheapest fares were right from Iberia's own site. We booked our travel in two legs - to and from New York and from New York to Italy and back to New York. We saved hundreds of dollars over the next best fares we could find.

I was just going to tell you to look at Ft Lauderdale as a leaving point also. Sometimes it is cheaper there than it is leaving from MIA. The only thing is there are no direct flight from FLL to Europe. I always check them both even though I live about 6 miles from FLL.