Airfare from Seattle

I'm not from PNW but would expect to pay at minimal about $1200-1300 during peak travel time.

In August 2019 we paid $960 for a RT ticket (bare bones economy) on BA to Milan from Seattle. I booked the tickets in late September of that year and we paid a bit extra (about $80) for aisle seat reservations on the outbound Seattle to London leg. (If you fly into Milan, get a window seat on the second leg. The scenery of the mountains and lakes to the north was stunning.)

I have always managed to get RT tickets for late July or early August for < $1000, I sometimes had to be flexible by a day or two with travel dates and/or watch the fares for a few weeks. This fall, I have been looking at fares for late June 2022 to several European cities. Just about every destination I have checked (Venice, Munich, Ljubljana, Zagreb) is about $1200+, Fares have gone up a bit (5-10%) over the time I have been searching and seem to be a bit higher for dates later in the summer, There don't seem to be significant differences if you change your travel dates by a day or two. The good news is, a lot of the airlines are offering free changes even on the lowest economy fares and some are offering full refunds on just slightly more expensive fares.

Good luck with your search.

Jennifer

What fare class do you want?

SPC ( self propelled cargo) = basic econ

Cattle = main/coach

Humane = Prem econ

People = Business

Spoiled = First class

Thank you for your responses.
FYI- not cargo but we do need advance seat assignments.
We travel with only a carry on but it’s usually over 15 pounds so we need to check depending on the airline.
We need seat assignments in advance as my husband is 6’2” and needs an aisle seat.

We usually fly with miles, but for our August 2018 trip we had run out of miles, so I booked Condor (from Frankfurt, not Italy) for $1100 each one way in business class. But their prices are not that low any more, and they are not taking bookings to Italy beyond next May. Right now a British Airways roundtrip to/from Milan in Economy Basic is only $200 more than a Condor RT flight to Frankfurt for the same dates in late July. (With BA Economy Basic you have no checked baggage but you can pay for seat selection; I did not check the price for that).

You cannot expect prices to return to pre-covid levels anytime soon, so those prices are not really relevant. You may find a sale if you sign up for alerts and are diligent. We heard on the news that airfare prices are coming down because people are re-considering travel while the virus is surging in various places, but that may only apply to domestic travel and/or fall and winter. It likely does not include travel to Europe next summer. So absent finding a sale that covers high season fares, anything you find for less than $1200 is probably going to be good.

(And although I said pre-covid prices are not all that relevant, I will say that $1200-$1400 is what I routinely paid to fly SAS to Copenhagen in the 1990’s, in August.)

The only time we flew the last week of August was Sea>Venice on Delta in 2018. It was in the $1300 range. We usually fly in September and from Seattle>Rome was in the same range. (This was booked in 2019 on KLM for early September of 2020). This of course was canceled due to lockdown.

You can see fare trends and graphs on Google Flights. But remember nothing holds true anymore.