Airfare costs

I've been watching airfares for a flight from LAX to Milan and prices have been around $1400 which is more than I am hoping to pay $1900 sounds high but nobody knows where the prices are going and anyone who says they know is full of it my last few trips I just watched fares daily and was able to find a dip in prices and buy then. I don't even trust the fare alerts, they aren't 100% reliable.
When is your trip?

I monitor air prices to Europe even to cities we don't intend to use or times we don't intend to fly, just to see what the trends are. Make no mistake, airfare for this summer (and to a lesser extent, off-season as well) is much higher this year than last. By my off-the-cuff guess, I would say almost 20% higher on average. If combating this trend is important to you, here is what I would suggest; Don't be a slave to your departure city or your arrival city. Is there an airline that can get you from home to New York City or Chicago cheaply? If so, use those cities as departure points and do your searches from there. You will be surprised how many more options you have and generally speaking, more options equals lower prices. As for your arrival city; with early purchase cheap train tickets, you can sometime travel half way across Europe for $50. You don't really have to be limited to your city of choice for air travel. However, many people dislike hassle and complication enough that they will forego a savings of a few hundred to make life simpler. Naturally, the airlines know this and count on it.

Randy, we will be traveling with our 9 year old so we would like a direct a route as possible. Previous experience with Chicago and New York makes me want to avoid those cities as much as possible. I guess beggars can't be choosers. Toni, what airline are you looking at? I would jump at 1400. We will be traveling in July during my daughter's summer vacation.

Hi Melanie. $1900 seems too high. Not sure what dates you are using, but I tried random dates of July 12-19 on Expedia for that route and found several options in the $1400 range. Enjoy your trip!

Melanie, I've been following the airfares to some extent, and doubt that they will decrease too much. Airlines are under enormous financial pressures at the moment, and trying to remain competitive while dealing with factors such as high fuel costs. There's always the possibility there could be a "sale" or whatever, but I wouldn't count on it. The airfare for my 2011 trip was about $2K (open jaw, inbound Edinburgh & outbound Rome). I'm not expecting to pay much (if any) less this year. I'll be watching the fares more closely when I start planning my trip for 2012. Good luck and happy travels!

Melanie, I don't think you said when you were going, but I did a search at Kayak.com for June/July and here are the results: http://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO-ROM/2012-06-13/MIL-SFO/2012-07-11 $1419

I booked Denver>London>Rome and Zurich>London>Denver for $950 each, travel days are about 15-16hrs total. I booked in Nov for May 2012 travel (fly out May 8, return May 30). I checked kayak.com literally every day starting in July and when I saw fare for <$1000 incl taxes, fees etc, I jumped on it. Good luck, purchasing air can be so stressful.

Melanie,
Have you tried the Hipmunk website? (Hipmunk.com) It's an easy and understandable way to quickly compare flights, and you can order the results in a number of ways- cost, flight duration, departure and arrival times, etc. For an open- jaw flight, choose the "Multi City" tab at top. For June there were a number of flights around $1500.

Well we went ahead and booked our flights, around $ 1700.00/ person on BA.com I could never find lower flights for the time we are going that didn't connect through either Chicago or New York. We prefer to make our connections in Europe, which is probably why it costs more. Thanks to everyone for their advice.