Seattle to Madrid (and back) for $385????

How can you beat that. Jump- dont ask questions. Delta is a good airline. Other people are asking about airfares to Europe of $1,000 and above

Actually it does not sound pretty good, it sounds unbelievable. I bet that fare is already gone.

They are having a sale...just checked ORD to AMS: mid-April is $358 total RT and mid-May is $547 total RT. That's total...taxes and fees. Unbelievable...time for a quick plan!!!

That fare I saw is already gone. It's up to $740 now for the same flight-still really good for a flight from Seattle in May. We actually already have our tickets for Spain-I was checking for a friend, and didn't think to call him right away about the $385. Lesson learned!

Many places are on sale. SEA - FCO is $580 in May which is absurd. I'm very tempted to hop over to Madrid for a week mid-May but not sure I can fit it into the schedule or justify the time off, following a 2-3 week trip in March.

Word of warning. Delta is known for canceling flights if not enough seats are sold on that flight. My friend just experienced it flying to Rome from Newark airport. Delta is not one of your better airlines.

The Delta flight is now up to $1140; US Air and others still have a fare around $740. This is amazing---I've heard all the talk about how fares change hourly, but I've never seen the process in action before. (We generally fly British to Europe and their fares don't seem to fluctuate like that, although there is an occasional sale.)

I agree with Charlotte on Delta.

Yep, Lola - it's real (or was). Some folks I know believe that there was a screw-up today with Delta's website (which has since been corrected, unfortunately). There were people who grabbed fares like JFK to Copenhagen for $150 round trip (including all taxes and fees). Similar fares to a half dozen European cities from US east coast, and other bargains. Travel had to commence by April 14. These killer fares did not last very long - lots of folks reported that between the time they priced a ticket on the website and when they were ready to click the button to confirm the purchase, the prices went way up to normal levels. But for a while today, spring travel to Europe was dirt cheap. I missed it (but heard of others who bought 2 or 3 trips for quick weekend trips). Reportedly, a couple hours later the prices were all back up to normal fares if you bought from Delta's website, but some folks were still finding the deeply discounted fares on Kayak and some of the other multi-airline websites. Although there's a lot of speculation about this being a mistake, based on previous Delta "fare mistakes", most folks seem to think that if you manage(d) to snag a ticket, it would be honored. FWIW, I was still finding pretty good deals on flights from Seattle to Madrid and Barcelona as of a few hours ago. But those crazy sub-$150 fares seem to be gone. It pays to pay attention sometimes.

If you find a really good SALE fare then it's best to just jump on it THEN. After you buy you can come here and tell us all about it. But if you have to come here and tell us about it and the listen to all the responses before you make your decision - chances are it will have vanished. That's my general philosphy of European travel...I go where the the sale fare takes me. Once I'm on the continent there are lots of ways to get to and fro between your destinations.

Was it a confirmed mistake, or was it an actual fire sale for a couple of hours? When I first went to their site yesterday, the banner ad was for a sale, but two hours later it was for something else & the fares were back to normal. Today, the banner is for a sale, but the fares are normal. A few years ago, I nabbed what I thought to be a mistake on Icelandair's website...I bought 4 RT tickets for $425 each for summer travel when the going rate at the time was double that on all other carriers and every other Icelandair flight. Later in the day, the fare was gone. I thought it was a mistake but didn't care at that point...I was already locked in. BTW, I have flown Delta a lot over the years and have never known them to cancel flights willy-nilly. On the other hand, the old Northwest was notorious for doing this when flights weren't full enough for them. Delta is at least as good as any other domestic carrier and better than some IMO.

If it was a mistake, they still would have to honor it if you bought the ticket at that price, wouldn't they? The Delta flights are back to $744 this morning (down from $1000+ later yesterday) still a very good price from Seattle. The Kayak site is still showing the $385 fare on their calendar that shows fares every day for a month, but you can't get it to come up as an actual offering.

They generally won't acknowledge that kind of mistake, so it's impossible to know, but I've seen lots of references to it as a mistake. It was corrected pretty quickly. FWIW looking at Kayak now, I see a SEA - MAD roundtrip in early April for as low as $324 that's crazy cheap! - but those are prices that were booked within the past 48 hours. Looking now, all the prices I see are at least double that (still, that's not too bad from the US west coast). Look at the prices from JFK to Scandinavian countries found recently: lots of $151 and $153 tickets to CPH; PHL to CDG $175. Those were round trip prices including all taxes and fees. Pretty sweet deals. Gone now, though. Oh well. That's OK, I'm sitting on a hunk of frequent flyer miles - that makes a European trip even cheaper.