Best Time to Buy?????

I don't really like kayak.I often go to the individual airline websites. I also flew Icelandair to Paris last year and it was cheap.

I use travel websites to compare schedules, but always book directly with the airline. But there is no magic time to buy. Watch the prices for a bit to get an idea of how they are running, then buy when you see an acceptable price.

This is a link to a similar question on this forum. you may find the answers to be of great help.

Recently I read that prices are good at 53 days before a flight. If you find a price you are comfortable with at any time, I would take it. It helps to monitor the prices day-by-day for changes.

Ciao!

Actually, I believe the report that Colette mentioned said 53 days is the sweet point for DOMESTIC flights -- international was more like 5-6 months out. But even if these were right, it's only HISTORIC data about prices ... so figure out when and where you want to fly and when you seen something comfortable at a price you can afford, buy it and move on.

Go to a travel information site such as Kayak and input an "open jaws" (into one airport, out of another) inquiry using your nearest home airport and into Venice and out of Rome. See what pops up and then go to the individual airline site that seems the best one and input that same information to see what pops up again. I go to Europe every summer with semi-fixed dates so I usually book 5 to 6 months ahead. And yes, prices just seem to be getting higher. I fly out of Seattle and have never taken, in 12 years, a flight that stopped in Canada.

I also noticed that prices started rising recently, I have been watching DC to Italy/France flights for March 2015 for a few weeks now. I don't know the best time to buy, but my completely uneducated guess is that as it gets cold, a lot of people like you and me are fantasizing about our warm weather adventures and starting to buy.... Check a few other sights as well (e.g., orbitz.com, vayama.com). And if you see promising flights, check the airline's websites directly. If it's an international airline, do flight searches through their American partner's websites, I found some different flight options this way that didn't show up on Kayak/Orbitz.

This is a pretty good article, they suggest 151 days early as the best time for flights to Europe (I wish I had seen this a few months ago, I would have bought my tickets last month before the prices started going up): http://www.cheapair.com/blog/travel-tips/when-to-ignore-our-advice-and-book-your-flight-as-early-as-possible/

You can purchase your tickets anytime now flying through Canada. Use 1 of the cheap US airlines to fly to Toronto arriving mid to late afternoon. You then book your Transatlantic flights on Air Transat (charter airline) to Venice with a return from Rome at good prices. The benefit of arriving in Toronto as suggested, is that you will not have to lay over in Toronto, as the flights leave usually between 1900 and 2400hrs. for the circa 8 hour trip. This could be more economical both financially and timewise.
If you can't get what you want into Venice then book a return to Rome and take the Trenitalia train which only takes about 2 hours to Venice. You can book a return ticket and save on the costs. Bon journee. Gingernut

You are right, Laura B. That report was for domestic flights. So if the OP Needs to fly to an international airport in the USA to make a connection with an overseas flight, according to the report she may find good domestic prices 53 days out (on or around).

One should be monitoring the prices everyday to get a feel of what price is high or low.

Ciao!

It makes more sense to buy your ticket through to your destination rather than cobbling together two or more tickets. On one ticket, if there is a delay it is the responsibility of the airline to get you to your next flight. It's also best to go directly to the airline to book tickets; if there's a problem, you have to deal with whatever company sold you the ticket.

I generally buy tickets 250-300 days out, then never check the price again.

One trick I've learned is to pick a flight that you would like to take and then proceed as if you're going to buy tickets. A lot of the airlines will let you choose a seat before paying for the flight. If so, you can see if the plane has started filling up. If it hasn't, there's no rush to buy and the prices might go down. But that's not a guarantee.

I tend to look for the best flight for me (shortest time, and flying direct from Seattle to Europe, then connecting to my final destination), as well as the best return flight time (I hate early morning flights out of Italy).

And it's a risky idea to buy tickets from different carriers for the reason mentioned above.

What's your nearest big airport in the US?

You absolutely do not want to buy the domestic and overseas flights as separate tickets, unless you plan on spending a night or two In the departure city ( which would wipe out any saving you might achieve). Late flights are all too common,* with the smaller "commuter" airlines that link smaller airports with the international one. If your flight from your home airport is late and you miss the overseas flight, you have no protection at all. So it is important to book both flights on one ticket.

Which airline is saying you have to route through Canada? Where are you starting from?

Thank you for the replies everyone! Lola, the airline offering cheaper flights, only if you fly through Canada, is United. We really want to avoid having to go through customs twice. I think once will be enough with two boys along.

We are hoping to fly out of St. Louis or Kansas City. Unfortunately, over the past few years, both airports have reduced the number of flights offered. At this time, we are looking mostly at United, American, or Delta as possibilities. We had hoped to budget $1400 at the most for each ticket. Right now though, they are as high as $1750 with one stop. We are willing to do two stops, but don't really want to have to go into another country to do so.

Trying to be patient and not buy too early. It's our first international flight, but with booking four people, we really want to make sure we can be seated somewhat close to each other. :) And that our layovers are not extraordinarily short or long.

My friend and I will be going to Rome from Boston in April and returning at end of May with Alitalia. We already made our reservations a couple of months ago. This time we really splurged and decided to go economy plus or whatever it is. Now, we will have to cut back on hotels, restaurants, etc. It is non-stop and I will be going to Boston from L. A. about a week before to see family and friends then head out to Italy. My idea was to get the seats we wanted early before the tour groups started reserving and other vacationers and we wanted a non-stop. I would make the reservations now if I were you although most airlines have sales in the spring but I was afraid we would not get the seats we wanted. We will be glad to have these comfy seats when we are exhausted from our trip and are looking forward to an 8 hour flight! I think I better get a job to support my travel habit!!!!

If going through customs and immigration is your only objection to routing via Canada, I'd check into whether you, in fact, would need to do that. If my memory serves me right (always a big question these days) we've done many trips on which we had a plane change in a country other than our destination, and did not.
Adding another stop is a wa-a-ay more serious issue. I'd do a lot to avoid more than one stop. Additional stops usually lengthen the total travel time, sometimes ridiculously so. Everyone gets crankier.

I prefer the ITA matrix for searching airfares:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

Looking at random dates in late June, flying into Venice and back from Rome, I found the lowest fare of $1700 from St. Louis. This is on US Air with one stop in Philadelphia. Delta through Atlanta, also one stop, is a bit more. Flying from Kansas City is more than St. Louis.

Venice is an expensive airport, unfortunately. Flying into Milan on Delta would be $1591, but then you would have to travel to Venice by train.

I got two open-jaw tickets from Boston-Venice, Rome-Boston on Aer Lingus last week for $1050 apiece, leaving on 5/28/15, returning 6/13/15. The woman at Aer Lingus said that was a great price. After seeing them priced at $1128 on Expedia and Orbitz I called Aer Lingus and got a better price. The only problem is that since I purchased over the phone I can't check in online. Flying the other way, into Rome and out of Venice was much pricier. Have a look there.

Odd thing I've noticed this year is that I can find a cheap flight out of the US to Italy, but Not a cheap flight back! I can fly Aerlingus to Roma for $ 1,000, but can't return on it at all ("not available" for every return date I check) or on anything else for less than $ 2500, $ 3000, $3500 and climbing. Somehow I found a Scandinavian return flight for $ 1200 and grabbed that.

I use Google only for an idea of what's out there and then search each Airline website and buy directly from the Airline.

Two pieces of advice from our experience last summer:

1. three segments (two layovers) means three chances of flight delays having a domino effect on each other.....which leads to:
2. Don't take the "last flight out" because you'll really be messed up if you miss it due to earlier delays.

I hate early am flights too...when I'm on vacation I enjoy sleeping in as much as possible. That mindset led to my booking a noon flight out of rome, and our arriving home (yes, at least it only affected that direction of travel) 2 days later than planned. We had it all: cancellation, delays, re routing, missing last segment on re routing, two comped hotel stays, waiting in line for hours (not joking) for our two comped hotel stays, 12 hr layover offerings, and unending long lines to the ticketing counter with every step.

Eu 261 helped with some compensation ( we received the maximum amount), but we would have given that money up in a heartbeat to avoid the agony of the two days. And with kids along: it would have been even more difficult.

I don't mean to freak you out......crap happens. But don't set yourself up like I did.

By the way, I bought in Feb for our trip in July. Prices dropped drastically for a couple days about three weeks before our trip, but I would never had the guts to wait that long to buy. Otherwise prices just gradually went up.

Peg

I started tracking prices last year for our flights in October 2015, so far I am seeing my price point booking 5 months out. We are flying LAX to Rome, then from Florence to Paris, Then Paris to LAX. Booking all of that on an open Jaw was running $1700.00 per person.

I found the cheapeast flights was booking LAX-Rome then Paris to LAX ($1,050.00 pp)...and booking my flight between Florence and Paris separatly. ($90.00 PP) ..this actually saved me about $500.00 a person! I was really surpised. I never even thought to do this, I was just playing around.

I am using Kayak for my monitoring...but will always book directly with the airline or my Miles card issuer.

I have to say I'm stumped by Sandra from Illinois's response above:

Odd thing I've noticed this year is that I can find a cheap flight out of the US to Italy, but Not a cheap flight back! I can fly Aerlingus to Roma for $ 1,000, but can't return on it at all ("not available" for every return date I check) or on anything else for less than $ 2500, $ 3000, $3500 and climbing. Somehow I found a Scandinavian return flight for $ 1200 and grabbed that.

You should never buy two one-way tickets.