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Falling airfare prices for June 2026

Posted by (Ithaca, NY, USA) on

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?

Posted by
6378 posts

I bought a non-refundable ticket on United and was still able to take advantage of a price drop. Because my flight was non-refundable, I got a credit for a future flight rather than a refund. If you are confident that you will be able to use the credit with its restrictions, you can save some money with non-refundable tickets.

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.

June 2026 is 7 months out. Most people don’t buy tickets this far in advance. My most recent flight showed many empty seats a couple months out. When I flew 2 days ago, every single seat was taken.

Posted by
3455 posts

Last week I bought Delta Comfort Extra (refundable) tickets for PHX/VCE RT in Sept 2026. I usually fly refundable United. There are no direct flights on either. I watched price trends for two months. When price dropped during the shutdown, the Comfort tickets were within $100 my usual United Economy tickets with seat and boarding upgrades.

I usually buy tickets as soon as they open. I know the airline will change something at least a couple times. It’s just a matter of watching the flights/tickets. United has always been helpful. Last time on Delta was pre-Covid but I’m not anticipating problems.

Posted by
3108 posts

And yet I hear over and over again “if you keep checking airfares the airlines track you and raise the prices”.

Posted by
1233 posts

And yet I hear over and over again “if you keep checking airfares the airlines track you and raise the prices”.

Mmmmmmmmmmm... the Cookie Monster :-)

Posted by
3057 posts

So the airlines are tracking Google Flights Inquiries? Hardly. But if you really believe that there is tracking then simply delete your history and cookies daily. And ignore all those helpful solicitations from websites to sign in via your Google account

Posted by
1459 posts

And yet I hear over and over again “if you keep checking airfares the airlines track you and raise the prices”.

Urban legend...

Posted by
3108 posts

Oh, I’ve never from one minute believe the cookie myth or the myth You have to go incognito or all those other myths out here on the Internet how you can find cheap airfares because the airlines are tracking you and only raise rates if you look a lot because thet know you really want to go

Generally, when somebody post those rumors I point out that I right now have a number of credits in my Delta account from rebooking airfares that went down and could they explain that and they always just ignore me.

As the companies that track airfare for a living, will tell you, they know this isn’t true. Otherwise, their whole model would be broken.

Posted by
1233 posts

Oh, I’ve never from one minute believe the cookie myth or the myth...

Never thought you did. I just enjoy the humor of the myth.

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