Leary and need advice

Have you tried using Google Flights? You can play around with it and use the calendar option for RT flights to see when the best prices are available. Then you must go to the airlines to book.

Personally, I would never book through an agency. There are too many directions to point fingers if something goes wrong.

I booked RT Seattle to London Heathrow awhile ago. I live in Tucson, but will be in Seattle a few days before my departure. I chose that option because it was a very reasonable below $1000 price. LA's was, too. The other cities I considered, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, were about $500 more.

If you mess around with Google Flights, you can see similar price differences for dates and departure locations.

Something else I saw was a price increase around Thanksgiving weekend when people often get together and plan trips. The prices went back down the following week.

It makes no sense.

Skyscanner is another good resource for exploring flights but we ONLY use it to find the one we want, and then book directly with the airline. If there's some sort of problem down the road or with the booking, it's a lot easier to deal with the airline than with a 3rd party.

No idea why the exact same flight was more on BA than shown on Expedia unless the latter wasn't clearly including ALL of the taxes and other extra costs, or it really wasn't exactly the same flight.

My family went through a travel agency for our airline tickets in 2013. There was an issue with one of the tickets on the way back from Europe, which we didn't know about until we arrived at the airport. Luckily a kind airline employee help my 85 year mother with her 3rd party ticket. This year I bought our tickets directly through the airline website while on a incognito tab.

Sites like Expedia or other air-fare consolidators can sometimes piecemeal segments together at a reduced price. Sometimes they work without a hitch and sometimes, well, you might run into a snafu. I would probably jump on it if I could save $500 per ticket. Immediately after purchasing retrieve the 6 digit airline confirmation code - and they're might be several if there are several airlines piecemealed together. Then I call the airline with my confirmation code and have them verify my flight. If they confirm then you've probably not got anything to worry about.

Flight cancellations? Yes that's a worry no matter WHO you purchase your tickets from. And thanks to the airlines only considering their stockholders and bottom lines these days, you as a traveler will be treated with disdain no matter WHERE you bought that ticket!

Last year, we purchased six open jaw flights to and from Italy through Expedia.ca. The flights were provided by Alaska Air and British Airways.

We found the flights by Kayak which directed us to Expedia for booking. We tried to book directly on the airline websites but could not get the same combination or low pricing. I even called a travel agent and he could not match. He told me to grab the deal. Once we booked on Expedia, our flights were recorded on the AA and BA websites under our account.

We had no problems. I do not have any explanation for this. But i have no problems recommending kayak or expedia. We also booked 2 of our Italian hotels at cheaper price under expedia compared to direct booking with hotel by their website or phoning (which i usually find to be the best).

EDIT: We were 3 separate bookings of 2 each because we were 3 couples who wanted to put our fares and hotels on our respective credit cards. None of us experienced any issues with Expedia.

I appreciate everyone's response here. This is my first trip to Europe. I grew up in a family of 6 siblings and as of the end of the next month, half will be living in Europe. I took the advice of using Google flights and found out that if I used my local carrier to fly me the less than 200 miles to Chicago and then booked a separate ticket from there, I could save a bunch of money. So am looking at that. Gets to be a more stressful situation when you planned on going in September and then you find out that family plans work better in June. Lot less time to plan, but grateful I get the opportunity. I am a big fan of buying my ticket from the airlines.