My daughter and I will be traveling to Europe June 2011. We want to fly into Rome and out of London. Tickets at the moment are around $1500. What is the best time to buy and what site do you recommend? I've used kayak.com because it searches all the other sites but the prices are all the same. Guess I was hoping the early bird would get the worm.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
7995 posts
Earlier is not always better. At almost a year out, what you are getting is essentially the stock rate, no specials, no deals. What you should do though is start to track the prices, check every few weeks, see how they change and what the prices are. You can also search for sites that show historical fares, to get an idea of what is typical or a good deal. Overall, what you want to do is get a good idea of what a deal is, so when you see it, you jump on it.
Be patient, for June 2011, you may not see a deal until about February or March. Also, if you are flexible, try some dates just a little earlier, sometimes leaving late May will be cheaper, seems most times prices jump at the end of May, then again a week or two into June, again a week or two later, then again, until the peak in July or early August, then the reverse happens.
It is impossible to peg where airfares will be, but in a broad sense, I would think that you could get closer to $1000 a ticket for that time period and route. Maybe better, maybe not, who knows.
Kayak is as good as any site, you could try a consolidator (airgorilla.com or airlineconsolidator.com) when it gets closer, especially if you need to mix carriers, but if you find a good price, I usually try to book directly with the airline unless it is a special deal.