Plane Tickets - Is it too early?

It's an incomplete question until you mention what city you're flying from in the US

Ah sorry - I am flying from Houston.

Turkish Air (great airline IMHO) is showing $1,300 (as of right now) and they're usually the most competitive on price (and still good on service). Even that seems a bit high to me but I don't travel in June, so hopefully someone else will chime in.

I'm seeing $1759 most days with the 26th being just under $1700 on:
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/#calendar:research=IAHFCO-FCOIAH
We're going to Rome in April by flying into London on Norwegian and transferring down to Rome. We're paying half what the above fares are.
Unfortunately, June is very expensive to fly to Europe and Houston is an expensive market to fly from to Europe. We try to avoid hot climates in their hottest months--and go a little earlier in the Spring.

Ohhhh, those are expensive. Saving money might depend on how motivated you are to go out of your way a bit to economize, which will depend on your personal trip budget. Delta will sell you a roundtrip for $1093, but you have to go in and out of Dallas, not Houston, and there's a stop in Atlanta. You could buy yourself a RT ticket to Atlanta separately and then fly Turkish for about $780, stopping over in Istanbul, if that's of interest to you.

June is a truly expensive time to fly. I might cough up $1600 for a nonstop, but I wouldn't be thrilled with $1600 with a stopover. My decision is also dependent on multiplication issues...is there just ONE of you flying? Two? Three?

My Lady and I are flying from Minneapolis to Milan at the very end of May. We got tickets through Icelandair for $1090 each (one 10-hour layover in Reykjavik on the way there, two 1-hour layovers in Copenhagen and Reykjavik on the way home) . You could do something like that, and then take the train to Rome for $40-50.

Check out Google Flights. You can choose your beginning and ending airport, and then it'll let you see a month-to-month calendar so you can see which dates have the best prices. It really helped us make our decisions.

Most of those DFW to Rome flights for $1049 are going through Detroit and coming back through another city (I forget.) But, hey! If there are more than one of you it could be worth the effort to get up there.

Wow those are expensive tickets...and in American dollars, wows a. Those of you who live close to Canada in border would do well to look at flights in and out of our cities. ..even in june, flights from Vancouver to Paris are running 830- 1000 $ Canadian( so that's like what 600 bucks American now ,,,lol

I wonder why American Airlines seem to charge so much more,,,1600 dollar flights! Yikes

Check flights to Milan. They are much cheaper than Rome.

Sorry don't know why I looked at paris,, but found ones to Rome to just as cheap,,,but sorry guys, these are west coast

Delta will sell you a flight from Houston to Florence for about $1130 for some days in June. Then you could add on a quick 1 hr 30 min train to Rome. You'll have to change planes in either Amsterdam or Paris....Amsterdam is an easier airport to transit through vs. Paris CDG.

I usually budget $1500 for a summer flight, but I have found prices as low as $1000. That's buying in October for a May flight.

DTW (Detrout) is a very easy airport to navigate, and a Delta hub, so if you do get routed through it, don't worry.

Thank you everyone! There are two of us, for those that are asking. I will look into the different cities options, as well as Detroit and Toronto. My main concern was that if I found something that I would be buying to soon and prices could go down a lot, but you have reassured me that the prices are already out there, so I should just go ahead and buy. Thanks!

We are flying in late May direct to Paris from Atl and return from Zurich, also direct flight and tickets were just under $1200. This is on Delta--actually Air France to Paris which is even better. It appeared that we could have flown cheaper by connecting in another city but we like to avoid that.

I am flyng out of DFW to (flying on free tickets) NYC to fly to Milan on March 9-20. Bought Emirates tickets for $598 roundtrip. You may want to try that airline. We are doing northern Italy and am amazed how compact the area is compared to Dallas- 2-3 hours driving time east/west and north/ south. Milan-Venice-Florence-CT

Good luck!

I am also going to Italy this June. 3rd-18th. For an idea of how its's been for us....

I bought tickets about 2 weeks ago, NJ to Venice non-stop, coming back we're leaving from Rome to NJ also non-stop. It was a little over $1500 a ticket thru United, but we upgraded to the seats with more leg room and opted for something to help avoid lines. Other family members waited to book, but are going later, 6/10-25. They got tickets around the same price or maybe a little cheaper, but they are leaving from NYC (JFK) and making stops. They are also flying into and out of Rome, we opted for open Jaw so we don't have to waste time back-tracking to a city we've already visited. Hope this helps!

You can never predict if there is a last minute flight deal.

But usually, as the tickets sell off, prices only rise. We went in May last year and booked our tickets in October. As i followed the prices, over the next six months, the prices rose and the the flights with less stops and shorter times disappeared.

For me, reserving the flight is the most important step in a vacation. I can always book last minute hotels, restaurants and attractions (sure some major attractions will book up, but I will have no problems finding something else to see or do in a big city/country). But if I cannot get to the destination at all or in a reasonable time which preserves my sanity, it will not be a good vacation. Point is, if you want or need to go, you can never go too wrong booking your air early.

PS I am not familiar with Houston so i have no idea if that is the going rate.. As suggested, you may try other cities if convenient. Also, try changing your dates by one or two days at either start or return. Some days of the week may be a lot cheaper than other days of the week.

We bought tickets from Chicago to Rome leaving June 10th, straight flight with KLM for $867 about 3 weeks ago. I was checking every 2-3 days on several sites and one night found these tickets. Checked the next day and they were back to $1100+. I would continue to check many sites because there are some deals but they don't seem to be lasting long.

I just found tickets on hipmunk.com from $976 Houston to Paris on AeroMexico. From Paris you can get a cheap round trip flight to Rome (around $100). The days in June you fly out and back will affect your price (I searched leave June 1 return June 15).

I started researching tickets 7 months before my arrival.. Probably as far out as airlines have info available.

I wouldn't wait too long. I am also going to Italy in June. I have been watching the airline prices go up and down for weeks. At one point, it looked like it was going to cost me $1800 pp in economy flying out of Chicago. I waited to see if a better rate would pop up. It seems to really be a game. I think you can get a bit cheaper than $1500. I locked down $1145 pp. I could have gotten a rate of $1100, but I waited and all those seats were sold. So if you can find something you can live with, grab it. Cheaper seats go fast. Good luck! That was a really stressful thing for me to work out!