Air fare to Scotland

I would search first on Expedia or Kayak but then switch over to the airline's own web site once you get an idea of the options.

" What is the best place to buy tickets from online at the best prices?"

This is a moving target; if there was one place that was consistently the cheapest, we'd all use it.

In addition, it depends on how much "pain" you're willing to endure. Will you take three connections to save $100? How about $500? Will you put up with a 12 hour layover, or a very long routing, if it saves a lot of money? There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but you will very likely be confronted with these choices. Since you live in Alabama, your options are more limited, and you'll have to make at least one plane change.

Laura is right; start with Kayak to see some options, then double check against the airlines' own websites (I just saved about $40 doing this with Aer Lingus).

If you're not ending in Edinburgh, be sure to look for "multi city" flights - for example, Birmingham to Edinburgh and London to Birmingham. If you are indeed leaving from Birmingham, AL, make sure you are looking at flights from BHM, not from the Birmingham, England airport which is BHX.

We use matrix.itasoftware.com as a resource to find flights and prices. You can't actually buy tickets on the site -- just research. Delta has non stops from Atlanta, but not as many as in the past. Many flights from Atlanta will have a change in JFK or Amsterdam. My choice will always be Amsterdam. JFK, imo, leaves a great deal to be desired. It will probably be much cheaper to get to Atlanta by some kind of shuttle, or a friend driving, or ?? than flying from Birmingham.

You can set up price alerts to receive an email if prices change. It is good to watch airfare prices so you will know when a good deal comes. Also, see what connections are available or what nonstop options are available. You can educate yourself pretty well by just checking from time to time and keeping track of what route looks best for you.

We too use matrix.itasoftware.com to find flights and prices. I also watch ClarkHoward.com for travel bargains in the Southeast.
Delta would be your best bet from Atlanta if you're from middle Alabama. We often will fly out of Nashville since we live in North Alabama as it's often cheaper than Atlanta to fly out of.
With European flight demand being down somewhat, just keep watch on airfares for now. You have plenty of time to wait for a bargain.

Assuming you already started casually looking, don't get too worried if you're finding high prices for your trip right now (that's only because you may be searching too far in advance). As others have said, flyscanner, kayak, and itasoftware are good options. Track airfare over several months and you can get a good feel of when to finally bite.

Thanks everyone.

The "experts" say 120-150 days in advance for international travel. However, I find that the seats I prefer (main-cabin extra or whatever your favorite airline calls coach seats with extra legroom) sell out pretty fast especially if you are trying to keep a group of people together. I usually buy mine about 180 days in advance but I trade some extra money for the seats and routing I like. When taking about a eight or ten thousand dollar vacation, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (to me) to be miserable in 31 inches of legroom or be on a 4-hop/30-hour itinerary just to shave off a couple hundred bucks.

I've been watching flights to EDI and have seen the same pricing. Funny thing is, flying British Airways through London and continuing on to EDI about $1500 but flying the same flight to London and getting off there will cost you about $1900. Go figure...

Some of my golden rules that will probably be controversial to some people:

• While I do research on consolidator search engines like Orbitz, Travelocity and others, I ALWAYS book directly with the airline. I've been caught in the finger-pointing war when things went haywire and I learned my lesson.

• I never mix airlines in a trip itinerary unless they are partner "codeshare" flights. Same reason as above...

• I try to stick with my primary airline of choice. I do a bit of business travel so I have the luxury of usually making the lowest premium tier in their loyalty program. Even if you don't fly enough to achieve a premium tier, loyalty does matter - not as much as it used to, but it still does matter a little. Airline ticket and gate agents do look at your travel history when making decisions about who to move, bump, delay, etc. Having an airline travel loyalty credit card also helps (a little).

• I never take the last flight out to my final destination - airports are cold and lonely places at night.

• I always book at least 90 minute layovers between domestic flights and 2 1/2 hours between flights when one is an international flight.

One possible itinerary you might consider is to fly into London and then take the train up to Scotland. You are likely to get better fares into London since there is more competition on routes especially out of cities like Atlanta. You can take a day or two in London and then head north. My son and I took the train from Kings Cross station in London to Edinburgh Waverly. The trip took just under 4 hours and took us through the heart of England to its eastern coast. It was great. After some time in Scotland we flew back to London Heathrow from Edinburgh. Two, one way, plane tickets cost us around $100 as there is a great deal of competition on that route. If you are willing to go to London Luton or London Stansted Airports, there are even better deals to be had. Just a thought.

Here's another strategy:

Fly Aer Lingus to Dublin, spend a couple of days in Dublin to get over your jet lag, then continue on to Edinburgh. With the low airfares on Aer Lingus, this might actually be cheaper than other alternatives.

I use Google Flights which is basically the same as matrixsoftware. (They are both owned by google.)

It will show you your options for the cheapest flights on different days. This changes daily if not more often.

I am also looking at flights to Scotland for next summer. If you are flexible with what city you fly into, check Glasgow. I'm finding that flights into Glasgow are about $500 cheaper than those into Edinburgh.

And Glasgow is super cool -- and if it's not your destination, it's easy to get to Edinburgh from there anyway!