In 2024 we made our first foray back to Europe post-Covid and for the first time ever ventured out of sardine class to travel United Polaris on the red eye to Europe and Premium Economy on the return trip. We did the same in 2025 and currently have tickets Newark/Paris booked for June 2026. Both flights are nonstop.
I watched fares for about a month and purchased fully refundable tickets at the beginning of October. Fares had fluctuated very little to that point (I was checking daily). After purchasing the tickets I checked the website or app once or twice a week to make sure fares haven’t gone down. At the end of October I discovered that—for some weird reason—while the Polaris both way fares had stayed the same, the Polaris/Premium Economy had dropped over $350 per ticket. With the refundable fare it was easy to call and have the difference refunded—I didn’t even need to cancel and rebook.
I’ve continued to periodically monitor the fare and to my great surprise today I discovered that the Polaris r/t fare was unchanged but our Polaris/Premium Economy fare had dropped an additional $360/ticket. Needless to say I quickly rebooked at the lower cost. Our current fare is much lower than in 2024 or in 2025, despite the fact that this year we’re traveling in June versus in May the past two trips.
I encourage everyone to continue to monitor the price of their plane tickets after purchase. We’ve jointly recouped $1500 (which is a good thing because Paris hotels in June will be costing us much more than those in Rome in 2024 or Dublin in 2025!)
I’m a little nervous that flights may be cancelled altogether because neither flight currently has many seats booked in Polaris or Premium Economy. I’m guessing this is in part due to fewer Europeans traveling to the US this year.
Curious to know if anyone else is experiencing anything like this?