Air line flights

Brian, you have lots of time to watch for deals. Get a feel for what things cost now and just keep checking to see how the prices are running. You should see some better deals after the first of the year. You might want to consider flying into another European city and then taking a smaller airline to Rome.

It is good that you are planning ahead. Assuming you do not have ff miles buy by Feb. generally for June flight. London faress can be on sale more and much cheaper to get to.You might try going into London heathrow take bus to Luton airport then take a cheap european airline into Rome from London Luton via Ryan air. Other cheap airlines like EasyJet and BMI serve other areas of Italy. all can be booked and paid online.you may also have sticker shock on Rome accomodations. good luck in your planning.

Try www.flycheapabroad.com in your search. You are starting a bit early, but that means you will not have to hurry. Flights to London or Frankfurt connecting to Rome on EasyJet or RyanAir might work. Beware, though, if the connecting flight is from a different London or Frankfort airport, it could be time-consuming and very inconvenient. I saw a fare for around the dates you mentioned for about $1500. I think you can do better than that, but I don't know what we will be facing in higher air fares next year. If your search gets too frustrating, turn it over to a good travel agent.

Brian,
You say that the prices are high, but you don't say what you expect them to be or what you're willing to pay. They'll likely drop over time, but if you've got an amount that you're willing to pay now to have the security of the possibility of them rising, what would it be?

It is a little early for June deals. Just keep checking prices every couple of days so when they do drop, you will be informed and ready. I use Travel Zoo, Expedia, and airline websites to stay on top of things. Question...Have you considered flying "open-jaws"?

Wait until about January at least. Airlines right now are trying to get the prices as high as they can generally for those that are willing to lock in early. Once it gets a few months out, if bookings are low, prices go down. It's called yield management and the goal for the airline is to get the load factor (% of seats filled) and the yield (revenue earned on a particular flight) both as high as possible, not an easy thing to do.

Brian, If you don't mind all the rules, flying the cheap airlines may lower the cost by some, but I always appreciate the reminder that the trip and time from Heathrow or Gatwick to Luton or Stansted can start to make the "cheap" less so. I agree that you may find prices lower in the early part of the year. I watch prices all year for the last 20 so I know what the "going" rate is and from the west coast to Rome you are probably looking at $1200-1400, but I found an Aer Lingus flight from SFO for 1108 on Kayak.com.

Brian,
I did a check for November from SFO and British Airways has it for ~$900. But November is the off-season and we're about 6 weeks away from that itinerary. But it shows you what a low price would likely be for you to find. With June being a higher season it would be surprising to find it at that price. You could watch it casually through the end of 2007 and then start checking more often starting early next year. You may want to set up alerts for your itinerary. I did that with kayak.com for mine. Then you can get updates (as often as daily) for certain itineraries during the coming months in your email.

Hi Brian : Surprisingly, flying from San Francisco to Europe or Britain can cost much less money than flying to Europe or Britain from some other big airports in the U.S.A. that are located much closer to Europe and Britain. The lowest prices (published fares) that I saw, ever, for airline tickets for flying to ROME from airports in the U.S.A. were available in December (beginning December 15) in the year before the year of the flight dates. The lowest priced tickets were sold out soon. For some airplanes of some airlines the lowest prices for tickets may be for only seven seats in an airplane, or for nine seats in an airplane. (Different people in the same airplane, in the "coach" section paid different prices for their tickets). There were some days, in recent years, when an airline greatly lowered the price for its airline tickets for a flight to Europe, a few days before the flight date. But that is not likely to happen for flights to ITALY in June.