Flights to Greece

Brian, I don't believe there's ANY reliable way to predict where airline prices will be more than a year in the future, as there are so many variables. The situation in the middle east seems to be one factor causing the current increases, and this could improve or it could worsen in the next year. If prices "at the pump" lately are any indication, it's likely prices will likely continue to slowly increase. I'm also dealing with high airline prices and paid more this year than I ever have in the past. To add "insult to injury", the airline decided to add a fuel surcharge on the day I booked the ticket (I should have booked earlier). In my case, the high ticket prices come down to a simple question - do I want a great holiday in Europe, or do I want to stay home and count the money that I'm saving? I was in Greece last year, and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful holiday there! Cheers!

Brian, at the risk of sounding like a consumer rather than a traveler, may I suggest an airline miles credit card? I'm going to Athens ( and out of Venice) in October on miles earned from a Continental Airlines card for 105,000 miles in a mixture of business and economy flights- 2 change of planes in each direction. If you sign up for a card with a bonus of 30,000 miles you'll have a half to a third of the trip already depending on whether you book coach or business or mixed. Then you'd only have to buy one ticket.
There used to be discounted seats from the airlines with their own vacation packages but have not priced those lately- it's easy to price those yourself also online.

Check out flying into Dallas Ft. Worth, Boston, NY/Newark, Miami etc. and connecting or perhaps stay overnight at a cheap airport hotel. Say take Jet Blue to Boston (free checked bag), Boston to Heathrow on Iceland Air, BA to Athens. Sometimes mixing up your airlines works out to be cheaper but make sure you've got LOTS of connecting time. OR, look into flying to London, Frankfurt etc. staying overnight and then catching a European flight from say London to Athens. I say stay overnight because you greatly up your chances of actually ending up being with your checked bag and making your connection. (Especially if you transit Heathrow). We flew to Chicago, next day flight to London, next day flight to Athens. This plan was a lot cheaper for us but the sticking point of course is the extra time involved.

Brian, you're looking too far out, but you are doing the right thing. The "sweet spot" is two to three months prior to your trip. Set up a price alert with some of the search engines like Kayak, etc. Open up your opportunities to find a good price: ie do as Marie suggests; finds a cheap flight "over the pond" ,and then take one of the lo-cost inter-eu airlines to your final destination. (Use Skyscanner and Whichbudget to find some of them). We have found lots of good prices with a stop off in Frankfurt (we love staying overnight there..so much to see and do!) One other opportunity is to find "open jaw" flights.; fly into one city and out of another (multi-destination on some of the search sites.)

Just an addition to melissa's idea of an airline credit card--currently you can get 100,000 bonus miles on a British Airways Chase Visa card. That's almost one ticket. See http://www.cardratings.com/ Good luck.

Try Easy Jet, Ryan Air, or eurocheapo.com Also worth mentioning are ferries from Italy. You could fly San Fran/LA to Rome.