Provence and Paris, March 2014

There are more seasoned travelers than me, but here's my take from a couple of trips. Since you know where you want to stay geographically, find and book your accommodations now. Hotels may get booked more quickly than airlne seats and even small ones have fairly liberal cancellation policies, unlike airlines, which charge a lot to change your tickets once you've bought. With airline seats, check weekly or, better yet, have Kayak or another reputable company send you weekly alerts. If you're planning on going to and from Paris and live near an Icelandair-serviced airport, Icelandair's prices may be good now. It seems that they often simply have their cheapest fares early on and increase them as seats get filled. It's more of a straight supply-and-demand model than the other airlines, which are hard to predict.
If you plan to go to one place and return from the other, check airline-specific sites. KLM-Air France had tickets for our itinerary (landing in Strasbourg, returning from Paris) that never came up on Kayak's or Priceline's websites. In the grand scheme of things, the money you're saving on getting the best price for an airline ticket may not be worth the time you spend on it, especially when you're spending more than 3 weeks in France. Still, sadly for me, I do the exact same thing. Those are my 2 cents. Jason

Thanks, Jason. That's pretty much what we're doing. We're travelling from SF and into Marseille. We're leaving from Paris. Our preferred airline is United and we use Yapta to check the flights. Still, it takes some nerve to hold off, especially when our dates are pretty much concrete due to hotels & airbnb. Even though the modify/cancel policies are excellent on booking.com and we can get flexible cancellation on airbnb, it's still a hassle to find different lodging. It seems that over the past few years we've been making our reservations earlier and earlier. We've reserved our Provence hotels and will probably reserve a studio but hold off a couple of weeks for the plane. Thanks again - good to know we're not the only ones who have this issue.

Speaking as one who flies from a small airport with limited seats going out, has one choice of airline (United) and often tries to get at least one award ticket, I usually book almost as soon as the airline allows it (11 months out). I usually try to book my lodging by at least six months out to be sure I get the places I want. Booked a couple eight months out for my upcoming trip, because their calendars indicated that they were already filling up.

Speaking as one who flies from a small airport with limited seats going out, has one choice of airline (United) and often tries to get at least one award ticket, I usually book almost as soon as the airline allows it (11 months out). I usually try to book my lodging by at least six months out to be sure I get the places I want. Booked a couple eight months out for my upcoming trip, because their calendars indicated that they were already filling up.

Just FYII went to KLM's site and saw that you can get tickets for one stop from SFO to Marseille (stop in Amsterdam) and a non-stop flight returning from CDG to SFO for $1,065. Seems like a pretty good price to me, especially considering the non-stop on the return. This combo, however, does not show up on Kayak. It only showed up when I entered the info on KLM's site. United's site shows fares for $1,123 for a similar trip (one stop out, nonstop back). Or, if you really want the lowest-priced United fare, the trip appears to be $1,065 if you're willing to take one stop both ways. Looking at the prices, I'm not sure they'll really go a whole lot lower than where they are now, especially since so many hundreds are simply fees and taxes. Good luck with whatever you choose.

Thanks for all the advice. We also try to get award flights. Nothing like going for (almost) free! We have been watching flights on United at $1065 or so for the days and times we want. They've gone up a few dollars but it does seem a good price so we might just go ahead and book before they go up more. If they go down we think the hotel savings will balance it out. Thanks again for giving us that comfort that we're not crazy for booking at this time.

That sounds like a decent price. I would just book it and not look back. If you are trying to use miles that can be secured right away if the tickets are available.

Thanks, Terry Kathryn. That's what we're going to do.

I think that's a very good price. I'd buy them now. I always, except for last time, buy our tickets 11 mos out. Last time, I waited per the advice that prices go down the closer it gets.. they didn't. They went way up. I ended up paying $1800 per ticket for economy seats and each way had a plane change.