High Airfares to Europe this summer

Theres been more than one other person posting about this, it comes up about every 5 days or so, along with should I get Euros before I go to Europe or wait till I get to Europe to get them. Regarding a solution, don't know if there really is one but most people suggest kayak.com and farewatcher. The instability in the middle east affecting the cost of oil along with the peak travel season equals high fares.

I know what you mean, but there's really no way around these prices. Those who want/have to travel in the Summer are paying exorbitant prices. For my family of three, on Lufthansa, we paid $5,000, and we booked those in February. We should've booked even sooner, but I was hoping there would be some special deal somewhere. Big regret! It hurts financially, but seeing family and friends again in Europe is taking precedence for us. Enjoy your trip, nonetheless!

Yep, we're all seeing it - just paid $3300 for TWO people to go to Belgium (though we did opt to pay the extra $300/ticket for non-stop flights - worth it to us). Budget Travel wrote an article earlier this year about it only getting worse, barring peace breaking out in the Middle East or a complete financial meltdown in China - neither is likely. If you must go over summer (I'm married to a teacher, I have no choice for extended travel), there's no way around it this time. Go ahead and book before it gets worse. Aside from kayak.com, try www.itasoftware.com and look for the matrix airfare search - this is the software that powers searches like kayak, etc - so you're checking all of those sites at once.

Saw a poster on Trip Advisor saying his/her TA told them Delta was adding about $75 in fuel surcharges on tickets to and from London purchased now as opposed to a few weeks ago.... I don't think it's going to get cheaper, but there are some deals. Delta, for example, has had some good pricing which was matched by AA and others on thier new BOS- LHR and MIA-LHR routes.

The only thing I am doing to try and help with these high price tickets is to be more diligent about keeping track of and using frequent flyer miles. I have been using amex for everything I can because those miles can be put toward any ticket, any time. My Delta miles I try to book something as far ahead as I can. If I can't make the trip it only costs 50 to redeposit the miles. (Yes, I agree they are outrageous and it has put Europe out of reach for a lot of my family and friends)

I think this is the new reality. Ticket prices are high and probably will stay high for awhile. We were thinking of a wine country tour in Argentina over Thanksgiving. Current best price is $1800.

This has been all over the newspaper travel sections, travel magazines, travel websites, NPR for a few months now....the fuel surcharges alone made news too. So there's a lot more than one person noticing! The other solution, besides staying close to home and off season travel (which is always a better idea), is to stay flexible and wait to see if any sales come up. Airlines will put unsold seats on routes up for sale, if they have them, closer to departure date. So sign up for airlines email alerts and see what comes your way.

Sadly... this is the reason I haven't posted in a long while. We've postponed our planned overseas trip for a year.... no Spain / Portugal / French Riviera for us! We're doing either Yellowstone or South Texas (or both) instead.

Went to the gas station this morning. Had the first $70 fill-up of my life.

We booked flights on points for this summer, had the full amount of points necessary - and still ended up with CDN $400 per ticket to be paid in additional surcharges and taxes. Most of it was Air Canada's fuel surcharge ...

We booked flights on points for this summer, had the full amount of points necessary - and still ended up with CDN $400 per ticket to be paid in additional surcharges and taxes. Most of it was Air Canada's fuel surcharge ...

Leave it to James boy to try to make it political. How could you even consider blaming one person for all the problems. Maybe a one track mind.

James just increased his count to 1148 and has yet to say anything constructive.

JS, I'm definitely suffering from "sticker shock", but not much I can do about it so I paid. In my case, it comes down to a simple question - do I want to travel or not? To add "insult to injury", the airline added a fuel surcharge the day I booked. Even if I stayed home and travelled domestically, I'd be paying $1.40 / Liter (about $5.30 / US gallon), and that's expected to increase as summer gets closer. Cheers!

We are :( staying put this summer (for now, at least). I have used up all of my FF miles and the air from Orlando is just more than I can bear this summer. It's frustrating when the airfare looks to be more than I would spend on land for 10 days!

I am always willing to wait on tickets and have been shopping for airfare to anywhere in Europe, knowing I can put a trip together in short notice (within 2 months of travel). I'm normally optimistic that I can find cheap airfare and that a deal will come. I did get my deal, but am much more pessimistic with regards to waiting later this year. American Airlines started a new route to Helsinki. I booked the flight from Billings, MT for $1060 RT in July of all times. The nice thing was that the other airlines matched the fare and I was able to book Delta and get my miles :). I did see some reasonable fares from Denver to Dublin ($917 last month) on American Airlines. The trick is to be ready to book on a moments notice. I booked my trip to Scandinavia about 2 weeks ago and the airfare has already gone up to $1537. Business class airfares are almost looking like the way to book at these prices.