Steve: Where can I book reasonable air flights from Portland, Or?

Steve is busy right now.

Why don’t you try doing a little research on www.kayak.com or www.skyscanner.net and go from there?

I will be traveling to Italy. Hopefully by way of Zurich.

Sorry, I have done lots of research. I have not waited till the last moment. I will not be traveling until 10/2010. I was told this was a very helpful site and I enjoy watching Rick's program. I was wrong.

Since you have over a year before your trip, my best advice on this topic is to start tracking fares using the two sites I mentioned before (or others as you may prefer). Know where you want to go, acceptable flight options, and your idea of a good fare for you. As soon as you see something that meets all of your conditions, buy it immediately. Check with the airline’s website right before purchasing…sometimes they will offer lower fares. If you’re not seeing acceptable fares right now, just wait a bit…you have plenty of time.

Melissa - AirfarePlanet.Com is a wholesaler that will get you a great price.

Yes, there's no secret knowledge here that can get us really low ticket prices a year in advance. Such deals just don't exist.

Low fares start appearing much closer to departure date. Of course, if you wait it can be harder to get the ideal departure/arrival times. The airlines know they have you in a bind there: buy early to help assure your dates/times, but pay more, or wait, HOPE prices drop, but risk the best flights being sold out.

Airlines are very good at manipulating all this. We travelers are not.

Melissa..."Sorry, I have done lots of research. I have not waited till the last moment. I will not be traveling until 10/2010. I was told this was a very helpful site and I enjoy watching Rick's program. I was wrong." Perhaps if you had included that information in your original posts, you would have received clearer answers to your questions, and you wouldn't be so quick to judge a board that you've just started viewing.
As Michael has suggested, use the two websites he's listed (and others) to start tracking airfares over the next month or two....see where they're going in terms of up-down. These sites will allow you to register so that e-mail alerts will be sent to you when the price changes, but there's no substitute for monitoring them on a regular basis.
Destination also plays a big role in air fares. You may find it cheaper to fly into, say, Paris, then take a discount airline connection to your final destination. London, for example, is always far cheaper out of my part of the world than any other European destination. So input multiple destinations and have those websites check them for you. You can check discount airline connections in Europe at www.whichbudget.com .
Check with airline websites that fly the route(s) you're considering. You can register there for e-mail alerts when they have fare sales.
When you find a price you can afford, purchase it, then forget about it and move onto the rest of your travel planning. Any statement that fares will drop at a certain time is without foundation.....airlines use sophisticated load management software that allows them to track passenger loads by the minute, and they try to adjust their capacity to cope if they notice some flights aren't being bought up. I purchased my flight to Madrid in mid-February for travel at the end of October. Despite all the "sales" on since then, I have yet to encounter a better deal than I got way back then.

The trick to finding cheap airfare is to check everything - expedia, travelocity, orbitz, kayak, bing, airfarewatchdog, farecompare, 1800flyeurope.com, directly with an airline's website, etc...

A few tips:
(1) You need to know what is "cheap" so when you see it, buy it. The cheapest flight I have seen from Portland to Rome was $650. Anything under $800 is a deal and under $700 is a steal.
(2) With a year to plan you have lots of time to wait so sign up for email alerts and if something good comes along take it.
(3) Believe it or not the travel websites keep track of your IP address and will raise the prices on you after you have looked at a flight a couple of times. So clear out your browser history and cookies before checking a particular flight.
(4) 1800flyeurope.com charges a fee for flights booked with them but you can often find a flight listed there for cheaper on another site. But it is a good place to look to get an idea on what flights are available.

Melissa,

As the others have mentioned, the flight information and prices for next year won't be posted yet, so it's not really possible to get an accurate idea on prices at this point. A couple of suggestions for you.....

You might start checking websites (Kayak or whatever) early in the New Year, or even later in the spring. That should provide a better idea.

You might find it helpful to speak with a Travel Agent. Even Rick uses a T.A. to book flights (as I recall, Elizabeth Holmes Travel in Seattle). The method I use on flights to Europe is to research flights first, mostly using the airlines websites and then have my T.A. book them. In a few cases, they've been able to find better routes or better prices.

Given your location, I'm a bit curious on why you're flying out of Portland? You could also check other airports as you may find better flight options from places like Seattle. October is a bit "late in the season" but you could also have a look at Vancouver, BC or Calgary.

Good luck!