WHEN TO BUY TICKETS?

Kent, any feelings, then, about "when" to buy the tickets?

Hi there.The airlines have a fixed date for when the plane tickets to Europe go up for the high season,which is on or around May 24.To them it doesn't matter how far in advance you want to book your flight,if you want to fly on May 24 you pay let say $800 to a certain destination and $1200 on the 25 of May.The only advantage you have by booking as early as you can is to get the $1200 fare,cuz as the flight fill up,the prices tend to follow that trend too,which means(breaking news)go UP!Very smart of them,huh.LOL.Good luck.

Chrissie- I am having the same debate right now, but from Pittsburgh to Rome. But I am inclined to buy the tickets sooner than later. I can't think the bottom will fall out of the cost of the tix, so the difference will likely be a few hundred dollars at the VERY best. BUT, what if you wait and then can't get a flight that works for you and you end up paying through the nose for something else? Bad news. I am planning on buying my tix in the next few weeks.

Two things to try (if you haven't already) to lower your airfare- 1) shop different airports (why we are flying from PIT and not BUF) and change travel days. I am finding wednesday departure to be the least expensive.

I would try flying into Milan, which may save you a few hundred, then taking a train to Florence. Also -flying into Frankfurt then catching a cheap Lufthansa flight to Florence could save you about $400-500. Check out kayak.com, farecompare.com and orbitz.com - set a fare alert on farecompare and orbitz and they'll e-mail you when your flight goes up or down in price.

I would wait until February/beg. of March to buy your tickets. Everyone says "buy early", but I've found waiting to buy about 3 months before departure gets me the best fares. Airlines usually have their spring/early summer sales in February. I read that domestic flights will go up in price this year, but international flights will stay relatively low and stable - I'm hoping they're right!

I use a consolidator. Try gotoday.com

We use fhe same stategy as Jennifer. We post fare alerts on Orbitz and Farecompare, and approx three months before our flight a lo one usually pops up.

For our last two direct flights PDX to FRA we got around $550 R/T by just waiting. (One of the trips was in June!)

For our XMass trip this year I could not find a good deal (nothing popped up until 2 weeks before the flight..and I would not wait that long!)so I started doing some open-jaw shopping. Got a $700 PDX to FRA, and got the last leg as a Lisbon to Portland. I thought that it was pretty good for flying at XMass.

Open jaws can sometimes be better deals than direct flights. all I eve care about is getting across the pond, then we use the cheap inter-EU airlines for the balance of our flights.

I second the travel agent option. Our travel agent's newsletter received today states: "All airlines plan at least two rises in prices due to oil increases- one this week and one later this winter or spring".

What newspaper article did you see about possible price drops?

I sure appreciate everyone's input. As for a travel agent, mine has just recently retired. I am willing to work with someone long distance. Does anyone have an excellent travel agent to suggest?

As with the previous poster, about 3 months before seems to work for me. I think the Airlines are then looking to move tickets, and there is still good availability. I also suggest looking at consolidators; try airgorilla.com and airlineconsolidator.com.

When you use a consolidator, how do you go about choosing your seats on the flights? The prices at the consolidator sites look really good but I need to make sure I can get aisle seats (for my very long legs).

Sometimes a travel agent can find fares that you cant.Stop in and try.Costs nothing if they cant help you.