Airplane tickets

"my question is, is that a good price or is it worth waiting a couple of more months?"

That's always everyone's question, and there is no way to know for sure. However, that looks pretty good to me. I just paid $690 to go from New York to the UK in September, so for summer travel, from California, $1000 a person sounds good. As long as the route is good (not too many stops, no very early flights, etc), I'd go for it. Of course, if it turns out that the price drops by $300 in a month or two, you'll regret buying now; if the price goes up by $300, you'll regret waiting. For flights to Ireland in the summer, however, there is a much lower likelihood of sales than at other times of the year.

Jim, nobody knows. There have been several periods of rather shockingly low prices this fall because of soft demand. It sounds like you're seeing fare-sale prices. If demand stays down, the lower prices may stick around awhile, but who knows how many other travelers will see the enticing prices and decide to grab tickets, causing the deals to evaporate. And deals are very origin-/destination-specific.

I will say this: I think there's not too much risk that the fare will drop a great deal from its current level (it certainly could drop some). I believe there's a substantially greater risk that waiting could mean considerably higher prices. But you need to consider also that once you buy the tickets, there can be no tweaking of dates. I'm sitting on the sidelines myself at the moment, because I'm not really comfortable buying a ticket seven months out.

I haven't priced from California, but $1000 per ticket seems pretty good. I try for $800 from NY, but that is obviously a shorter flight. I would buy if you can afford it now.

I have absolutely no stats to back this up, but my anecdotal experience is that it is cheapest more like 10 months out and goes up from there. I don't know about last minute - I plan months out due to work - but I have had much better luck at 8-10 months than 4-6. I just bought for late May and at 7 months out the price was higher than I had seen at 9 months.

Jim,

If it's 2000 per ticket it sounds on the high side. I've been flying mostly in may to early June. SFO to LHR or FRA generally runs in the 1300 to 1600 range on united. I usually book in Jan or Feb so about 4 to 5 months prior to actual flight dates. I have noticed that fares do tend to get higher the later in June you travel. Of course this year could be totally different and San Francisco is a very competitive market with many choices in airlines to Europe.

Good luck, I hope you find a good fare.

Rocket, that $2000 price was for two tickets.

Where specifically are you looking to fly out of? Central California is pretty vague.

Is Dublin your final destination or are you looking to fly out of there to somewhere else on RyanAir
Norwegian Air Shuttle flies out of Oakland and LAX for really low fares..

We are flying out of Fresno to Lax and then on to Dublin. Then returning from Dublin to Lax and then back to Fresno. Yes that price is for two round trip tickets. They actually come out to $1950 for both. They are the times we have been looking for with fairly short layovers. I know it's a crap shoot wondering if the price is gonna go up or down but to save a couple hundred dollars isn't worth it to me.

It is about 7 months out but we are considering trip insurance in case something comes up between now and then. We just had a travel agent friend tell us 5 to 6 months out for tickets so we were trying to follow advice from someone with more expierence.

Thanks for all the help, it's nice to hear from others in the same situation.

If you have found a ticket price for 1,000 each to Dublin from the West Coast I would say that is a pretty good price considering where you are departing from. I had no intention on getting tickets to Europe until January time frame, but I have grabbed some great deals lately. I usually go into London every year. Finding prices from the midwest (St. Louis area), is still quite expensive around $1900 each (with the connecting flight through Chicago). So I am doing something different this year. I got some cheap tickets from Chicago to Dublin in June for $500 round trip, then I am going to use Ryan Air to get to England. Its is saving me a bundle on the family tickets - and a few days in Dublin is fine by me. I also grabbed some tickets to Zurich round trip for Chicago in July for $800. All on American. There are some bargains out there this year. I have not paid low prices like this for a very long time.

Thanks for all of the replys. We are probably going to go ahead and buy our tickets now. I just don't see them getting much cheaper. If they do by a couple of hundred dollars oh well. If they go sky high I will look like a genius.
We are getting trip insurance just to cover the what ifs. Triple A has pretty good insurance that covers a lot more than just the cost of our tickets.
Thanks for the help, this is our second trip but this is the first time we have bought the tickets.