Post Regarding Booking Fall Air After August 10th?

I'm flying to London at the end of November and will probably wait until the end of Sept/beg. of Oct to book. Most airlines don't release their discounted seats until about 8 weeks before departure. I'll continue to check every few days, but I wouldn't expect them to go down until at least September.

I've been watching daily since this post, and unfortunately I didn't discover kayak.com's charting feature. There were some smoking deals in mid-November at some points.
However Alitalia did have a deal, not on my preferred dates and not open jaw, at under $700/pp. After reading a few things about them, I decided to pass and hold out hope for the Air France itinerary that I'd like to have.
As of this point, the fares for November are yet to drop. I could go in and out of Rome, but would like to go into Venice and out of Rome with a target price of around $700/pp on Air France with a single layover in CDG.
I'll just keep watching.

I'm with you on this one! I'm flying to London at the end of Nov. and airfare actually went UP $50 last week. Maybe there will be some Labor Day specials...

I've been waiting to book tickets to Rome late november as well, out of Sea-Tac. They all seem to be $900-1200 right now. I'm really, really hoping they go down.

But then, I don't want to wait to long and be forced to pay even more! Believe me, this has been extremely stressful...I just want to buy my tickets and be done with it!

Please, let me know if you find anything! I'd love tickets for $700!

I too noticed this post and took it to heart. I watched airfares weekly patiently waiting for August 10th. I was purchasing airfare for 4 people from different originating points. There was very little change. 2 went down very slightly and the other two went up slightly. Oh, well. I purchased them anyway.

As a side note - We are all flying on AA, but I purchased the portion from London to Prague separately for 2 of us because it was $400 less doing it that way. I also did a lot of searching on the BA sight and am convinced that their fares only go up (unless you happen onto a great sale.)

I think there are still going to be opportunities for the prices to go down some more. I haven't noticed a lot of sale fares for November at all. The nice thing is that from SEA there are direct flights to Paris, Amsterdam, and London. I prefer my first leg to be the long one as opposed to flying to the eastern US and jumping off from there. My chosen dates are 11/9-11/24, but I can move either direction a bit, if necessary. I'd also like to go SEA-VCE and ROM(FCO)-SEA instead of in and out of one city.

Steve- the cheapest I've found so far is through www.1800flyeurope.com. I'm leaving 11/10 and coming back 11/24. It's in and out of Rome- the first half through JFK and Paris on the way back- $750 plus tax.

I would rather fly straight to Europe as well and then to Rome...but this seems like a really good deal. I'm not sure if should still wait or just go for it?

Oh, and its a Delta flight operating with Air France...Northwest uses Alitalia.

Gwen,
What does the cost come to with tax? I'm guessing it's not that far off from booking straight through the airline.
Currently, via Air France's site, from SEA-VCE (via CDG) and FCO-SEA (via CDG) with dates of 11/9 and 11/24, the total before tax is $864 and $973/pp after tax.
You can do your same itinerary, booked on Air France for $968/pp after taxes.
I haven't hit panic mode yet as I haven't seen any real airfare sales for November yet. But we are starting to consider different options if it becomes necessary.

Steve if there is more than 2 of you, I would book now. Something to think about: If there is a sale, would your fingers be fast enough to order the tickets online? One poster from a similar, prior thread stated, the available tickets are very limited when there is a sale. Recently I read that plane travel is back to pre 9-11 levels. Doesn't sound like a sale in the future. Also $968 rt from Wash. seems to be a decent price. I purchased rt ticket from JFK to Paris for $753pp during the beginning of Aug. So far the price hasn't changed. I'm not taking a chance; had to buy 6 tickets. Good luck.

Jeannine,
It is just two of us, and we're pretty flexible.

Steve-

Here is what I did:

Seattle-Amsterdam-Rome 11/10, Amsterdam-Seattle 11/24. $815 RT, tax included. I opted for the add-on insurance for $38.

It's open-jaw which made it a little cheaper.

One week in Italy, one week split up between Paris and Amsterdam. Sounds good to me!

Gwen,
I see how you did it. So you'll have some ground transportation as part of your trip, working your way back to Amsterdam. We did Paris as part of a trip in March of '05 and this trip is planned to be exclusively Italy.
I just checked Kayak again, and I'm coming up with $917/pp for some air just to and from Rome. If I do the Venice + Rome itinerary it jumps up about $25/pp. Interestingly, they're showing # of seats available again - which is 9+ on all legs of each trip. That feature had dropped off for a while.
I'll keep watching as I have been.