Air fare

It’s just crazy right now. I’ve been watching fares to Munich and they’ve gone up in the last month. I heard a couple months ago that they should go down in October. Fingers crossed!

hey hey s42
have you check flights to milan, venice and florence?
how about multi-city to dublin, munich, zurich then onto italy. when you like book it. so many people still wanna fly after pandemic, not over yet.
it'll drive you koo koo but keep trying
think you want july 2023, which is high summer season. sign up for alerts with emails when price comes down.
but with the price of gas and oil keep going up, who knows whats gonna happen. aling with issues europe has and is having. good luck
aloha

I've noticed it too. Typically, a standard direct fare from my hometown to London, Paris or Rome is $1200, but Rome has jumped to $1800. It's all about patience and flexibility. Sooner or later a seat sale pops up.

Rome was on the hit parade this year so the demand raised airfares. When I checked, Naples and Milan were a lot less than Rome this summer from California. As Princess P. suggested above, check GoogleFlights for flying into Milan. Venice, Madrid and Athens. Good return flights taking about 14 hours each way from Calgary to Athens start below US$760 in low season. From Athens you can fly to Rome in two hours for $30.
Skyscanner is also an easy site to use for flight searches.

I noticed too. My June trip best route is in to and out of MUC. The lowest price Monday on United was $200 less than I saw 5 weeks ago. Even within the the Economy flight routes for the same day there was a $400 difference. So I bought least expensive tickets which work time- and connection-wise. I think oil/gas prices are still rising since OPEC just cut production and Putin’s being _____ (you fill in the impolite blank). They’re refundable tickets so if prices miraculously go down, I can cancel and rebook.

To answer your question: no one knows where prices will head. You just have to go with your educated guess, gut feeling or Ouija Board.

As for cutting corners, I haven’t figured that out. New credit card sign up bonus helped save money this year.

EDIT: To help cut costs, use a credit card that reimburses airline incidental fees. I just got credit the priority fees from my return trip last week, something I had not thought about. Not a lot of money but it paid for dinner. The card also reimburses Global Entry card cost (renewed mine when I got home). I’m using a BAC Premier Reward Visa which has no foreign transaction fees.

Well nothing is predictable anymore, or generally true everywhere. I just got an email this week from Delta offering roundtrip fares from Kansas City (i.e., not the coast) to Rome or Munich (and other destinations) for $700 which is half the recent pricing.

Honestly, I've not found a substitute for checking fares often (preferably at least once a day) over a period of time. I use Google Flights, but I'm sure something like Kayak would work fine. There might or might not be a publicized sale, and any such sale might or might not mean significantly lower fares from your origin(s) to your potential destination(s). Do your own research.

Flexibility on origin airport, destination airport, date/day of week and airline can make all the difference. I once saved $100 off what was already a cheap fare by traveling outbound on April 30 rather than May 1.

I also find it very useful to have frequent-flyer miles in my account that can be used when cash fares are high and/or I need the flexibility to cancel or adjust dates because of the sort of uncertainties we've been dealing with.

It goes up and down. You just have to watch and wait until you find one that you can afford, or stomach paying.

I would not expect many loopholes in the age of belt tightening!