Airfare advice

Ah !!! the everlasting question - when will airfares be cheaper than now? And the answer -- maybe soon and maybe never. Truthfully, I think $700 is very unrealistic especially for June. For a high season flight I think $1000 to 1100 is very reasonable. But Steve will come on and tell you that there will be big sale tomorrow and to wait, and to wait -- and, of course, anyone telling you to wait has nothing at risk. You need to review farecompare and other sites to determine a FAIR price for the route and be prepared to buy at that price when it becomes available and be prepared to pay a higher price if it doesn't. You can have a lot of brain damage trying to save 400 to 500. There are other places in your travels where it is much easier to save money than on airfare.

Looking at the website, DL and Air France are Partners.
Advise looking at DL to Pisa(not many fly there, and it's close to Florence, the Cinque terre, Rome, ect.
You also have the choice of using either Atlanta or JFK(which I dislike) but work backwards.

I'd wait.

Those fares you are seeing are probably as high as they'll get.

Wait for a sale. Check multiple websites, EVERYDAY. Kayak is a great tool for domestic fares, but in my experience, I've never had it find anything close to what I can find manually. Getting a good international airfare takes a little time and effort. Travel agents for these type of fares can be helpful, especially if you are willing to use consolidator tickets.

I love the consolidator ticket FAQ written by Edward Hasbrouck, author of the Pratical Nomad.
http://www.hasbrouck.org/faq/

Sometimes you'll find a published international fare that is competitive with what the consolidators are offering (like my $630 open jaw SEA-HKG, BKK-SEA fare for my Fall 09 trip to Asia).

Other times, consolidator fares can be hundreds of dollars less than the published fares (for instance, when I purchased my open jaw SEA-LON, ROM-SEA ticket for my Spring 09 trip to Europe, it was around $660, but only available as a published fare at over $1000).

Use all options, and don't be afraid to feel out travel agents for discounted international fares if you can't find the fare you'd like.

Some site will let you check seat availability. If seats are filling up, then it probably would be a good idea to get a ticket.

Hi Myriam,

I wasn't able to determine if you are wanting to fly directly to Rome from your post, or if you actually wanted to stop in London. I was just looking at SEA to FCO in June and there were fares from $784. When in June are you traveling?

This past summer I booked an open jaw ticket to Paris (from PDX) and then came back from London. I purchased the ticket only a week before I left and the fare was $950. You can do better than $1000 for your ticket.

I was going to go to Rome this past June and tickets were around $650. I say wait until around March to get your ticket.

Others may say it's a big gamble, but I say that $1000 is your worst case scenario airfare.

Wow, you guys really know your stuff! I looked at several of these sites you all mentioned, actually, and was pretty certain I'd be paying those amounts for our tickets.

But then I called Alaska again, just to see. This time the agent I got was SO MUCH better. She informed me that if I moved my trip by one week--to fly out on 10/16 instead of 10/9--that I could fly to Italy using 40K miles instead of 60K. It's a new thing with their partner, American Airlines.

Anyhow, I gave her all the details of our trip, she put me on hold for about 10 minutes, then came back with much better options than the crabby and obviously incompetent agent I had when I first called!

So using only 40K miles per ticket, and paying the usual mileage awards fees, we are flying SEA-JFK-MXP and then MXP-JFK-SEA. We adjusted our itinerary so there is really no backtracking, and now we have a bigger budget for accommodations, dining, and all the other extras!

Thanks for all your help!