Tips and Suggestions regarding airfares

#1--There's no way you can tell when the cheaper airfares will be a year from now. Flights are generally less expensive on Tuesday or Wednesday, and they're usually less expensive in May than in June. For a May flight, I'd usually be booking a flight on a big legacy air carrier around the first of March. For a budget airline, I'd be looking a little earlier than that. Don't worry about finding accommodations in Italy as rooms are plentiful in the bigger cities.
#2--Go online now and see what airfares are. Go to MatrixITASoftware.com and sign into Multi City (open jaw) flights for 3-4 weeks from now. That'll give you a base line value for airfares.
#3--Don't limit yourself into just flying into Venice and out of Rome. You may get better flight times, etc. making that route in reverse--into Rome and out of Venice.
#4--Don't count on Atlanta in the near future to be the mecca of low European airfares. Budget European airlines like Norwegian Air Shuttle fly into Orlando. And they fly into Newark, Newburg (NY), JFK and Boston. Since Birmingham's biggest airline is Southwest, you can get to any of these airports inexpensively. See: Norwegian.com

We've been flying to Europe on Norwegian Air Shuttle out of Orlando. Once we flew into London Gatwick, spent a long weekend and flew on down to Pisa on EasyJet.com really inexpensively. Then we flew from Venice to London inexpensively on British Airways and home from Gatwick. A few months later, we flew Orlando-Copenhagen and from Bergen, Norway-Orlando after connecting in Oslo. We returned from Budapest to Oslo and into Boston a month ago on Norwegian Air for $238 each. We then picked up a Delta flight into Nashville after spending the night in Boston.

I live 2 hours north of you, so we know what you're experiencing in making travel arrangements. We most often fly out of Nashville BNA as it's one of the cheaper airports in the Southeast due to having so many Southwest Airline flights.

1. The prices do not drop on an airline site. But if you book through an agregator for example Expedia Orbitz etc. you will find deals. But they will not reveal the airline until you purchase the ticket. For example I recently bought a ticket through Expedia and flew on Delta Chicago to Amsterdam for $250 dollars less than the price on Delta's site listed as over $1000 and all other prices I found listed by other airlines. This only works if you are not in a hurry to go somewhere in comfort (but the trick is once Expedia tells you what the airline is you go right to the site with your PNR and select your seat (no middle seat for me on that flight). Also beware lower prices can mean long layovers or crazy routes for example Birmingham to Istanbul (10 hour layover and then to Venice.

2. A good price is below 1,000 dollars I think since you are planning to go late May early June at the start of peak travel time, when all the new college grads (as a present from their parents) are going to Europe. I know because I use to check in passengers Chicago to London when I worked for an airline. I like to use Google flights to search.

3. No. You are booking your open jaw as Birmingham to Venice and then Rome to Birmingham all at once. You will or should take the train Venice to Rome. Maybe I don't understand what you are asking here?

4. It is time consuming but you have to research for yourself the cheapest port to fly in and out of most convenient to you. I live in Chicago and the taxes at O'hare are higher if I fly direct from there internationally so I have flown through Montreal from Nice to get back to Chicago as it was cheaper

David,

Thanks for the tip about Nashville - I didn't think that it was that much of a hub airport to find cheap flights.

The flight prices can change considerably on the airline websites depending on the day of week/time of day you check the prices. Clear your cookies & cache between each search!

The Nashville airport has loads of flights, but in my experience given the number of flight changes from BNA to other airports and then onto the NEXT airport, you're doing better flying out of Atlanta. It will save you at least one plane change, and that can save you $$$ right there.

Good luck, and have a great trip!!

The problem with going through Atlanta airport is that you only have Delta flying to Rome--and Venice seasonally. The flight times would be very short and you wouldn't have to transfer through any European gateway airport. I would expect Delta's prices may be very expensive--especially in Summer. Prices are a result of no other competition from any legacy air carrier and absolutely no budget airlines flying into Atlanta.
But when traveling to Europe (and elsewhere), lowest price is not everything. You've just got to check out your options.

I disagree with the advice to wait until next year to look for flights. Especially when you need to buy 4 tickets, more information ia better. After figuring out what are likely to be your best options (see below), I'd check those fares extremely frequently, starting now. Every year is potentially different, but last fall there were multiple short periods during which fares for some origin/destination pairs dropped precipitously. Folks living in the right areas who were watching fares religiously were able to pick up some incredible bargains. There's no guarantee that will happen this year or that there will be great deals benefitting folks who live in Birmingham, but if you don't have a good idea of the typical fare and are not watching fare movements on a nearly daily basis, you will not be in a position to snag any deal that does happen to come along. If you're lucky enough to take advantage of a great deal early on, you'll be able to relax about the price you've paid, but you'll need to re-verify the schedule from time to time, because airlines adjust those and sometimes not all passengers6 get notified.

From my origin (which is a more competitive market than yours), Rome and/or Milan have always come up as the cheapest Italian destinations every time I've looked. It might be different for you. Be very cautious about flying back from Venice, because many US travelers have found themselves having to get up incredibly early to make it to the Venice airport for shockingly early departure times. That situation usually comes with a need for expensive private transportation to the airport, but I suppose spread across 4 people that might not be so significant.

I use Google Flights to look at airfares, though there are other options. Spend some time with at least one of them until you are familiar with how it allows you to explore fares to multiple destinations and for multiple dates. I have found that looking at round-trip routings initially yields useful information, then I start researching multi-city combinations of the cities that have the lowest round-trip fares. In your case, you could start with 2-week trips from Birmingham (then later Atlanta, etc.) during May, then during June. The website should allow you to identify the departure dates with the lowest fares for a trip of that length. Look also at the fares for trips returning on what would be your actual travel date, assuming your trip is not exactly 14 days long.

The airfare websites like Google Flights do not--as far as I know--include fares for the discount transatlantic carriers like Icelandair and WOW. You'll need to do extra exploring if you are considering them, but the savings are sometimes substantial for people living in cities where airfares run high. However, understand that your connecting flights will probably have to be on separate tickets, in which case the onward flight will be at your risk. A major delay on the first flight may mean your second ticket is useless, and if you miss your outbound transatlantic flight, the airline will probably cancel the return ticket. Expensive for you since you'll be paying for replacement tickets at whatever the current prices are. So proceed very cautiously if you decide to try flying to another city to pick up a budget flight to Europe on a separate ticket.

Remember that if you fly back from a city that's not part of your itinerary, the last day of your trip may be essentially wasted, getting yourself into position for the return flight. If you fly into a city you had not intended to visit, you'll probably be back here, asking how many hours to allow before the train trip you need to reach your first city. Those train fares can be much cheaper if bought in advance, but we normally advise travelers just to wait until arrival and pay the full walk-up price since flight arrival times are uncertain. So factor the full-fare rail ticket cost into your calculations.

I don't think you can "game " that system..... My experience has been this: when I look at flights to FRANKFURT (which is where I normally wish to fly) - they are EXPENSIVE during the American holidays (Christmas, summer) and cheaper during the shoulder seasons - meaning whatever doesn't encompass an American holiday. I find that smaller "hubs" are even more expensive...In California, SFO / LAX are cheaper, while Sacramento / Fresno hubs are much more expensive.

The only way you are going to get cheaper flights (in my opinion) are flying the off-season times OR flying the discount airlines, which I think I am going to try in the future - WOW, Norwegian Air, etc. From my hub, SFO, United and Lufthansa are the only non-stop options to Frankfurt, and they are always in collusion in prices, and always expensive. (Last summer I paid more than $2000 during July for a non-stop from SFO to FRA; there's no way around that with United and Lufthansa).

Here is an article I found helpful. It may help you too. (I have no affiliation with this blog.)

How to Book the Cheapest Flight Possible to Anywhere

If you take another airline/reservation to position yourself at a different airport here in the US, you add another element of risk to your plans and should plan accordingly. You need to leave enough time cushion that a flight delay or cancellation of the first flight wouldn't cause you to miss your European flight. This usually means arriving the day before so add in the cost of a hotel room in your price comparisons.

Consider flying into Milan and taking the train to Venice. The Milan flights are generally cheaper, and the train is only €19 if you buy in advance and get Super Economy tix. Although those are tricky yo time, so maybe you would be better off with a ticket that can be changed if your plane is running late.

Forget what I just said about Milan. I did a quick check on fares with Google at the end of April ( as late as it will show) and the cheapest was on Lufthansa, out of Atlanta. Flying into Venice and out of Rome is cheaper ($902, not bad!) than flying into Milan ($961).

But of course things could change for May flights.

Leaving as early in May as you can will probably help.

Lane,

Thanks for the link to that article. It contains a lot of extremely useful information.

I wish we could travel at an earlier time to get better air (and hotel) rates, but my wife is a teacher, so it has to be after school is out (and we will be gone longer than a week, so spring break is out).

There is no longer any rhyme or reason to airline prices. That includes both which places are cheaper to fly to, and when the tickets are cheapest. Recent example: I was looking in March 2017 for flights to Europe from NYC in May 2017. (According to "the experts," that's too late to get a good price). The cheapest destination - by far - was Zurich, with nonstop roundtrip flights on American or Delta for $349 (not a typo - three hundred and forty-nine dollars!). Then I looked for Geneva. Nonstop flights were about $1200, and flights with a stopover were about $650 with a very long layover in Casablanca (Royal Air Maroc) or $700 with a reasonable layover.

Why was Zurich SO cheap? Why was Geneva SO much more expensive than Zurich? Your guess is as good as mine.

So, look at all the options and get to know the fares and routes. When you see a price you can live with, book before it's gone, and then don't look back.

I look on Kayak, which does include WOW and Icelandic and Norwegian. But lately I sometimes get better results on Skyscanner or Google Flights. When possible, I prefer to book with the airline directly. With some airlines (like the three budget ones I mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph), two one way tickets are the same price as a round trip. But with the others, one way tickets are far more expensive. So, be sure to look for open jaw flights ("multi city" or "multiple destinations") all on one ticket, such as Birmingham to Venice and Rome to Birmingham. And be sure you are looking for Birmingham, AL (code BHM), not Birmingham, England (code BHX).

If you are thinking of taking flights on separate tickets to save money (for instance, one ticket from Birmingham to JFK, then a separate ticket from JFK to Venice), be sure you understand all the risks. Here's a good summary: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g41707-c207311/Newton:Massachusetts:Connecting.On.Separate.Tickets.html

I always look to see where I can fly cheapest in Europe from my city. One year we were headed to Venice but flew to Munich and took the train to Innsbruck, where we spent the night, and then on to Venice the next day. Yes, some people would say we "wasted" a day or more, but we were still "on vacation," were enjoying a lovely train ride through gorgeous countryside, checked off a new country (Austria), and were ready to hit the ground running when we got to Venice. If you save enough on airfare, it can be worthwhile. As someone mentioned, the "cheapest place" can change daily.

Yes, David is correct. We often check ITA first to get an idea of what prices will be like around the time of travel. We like to plan at least 1 month in advanced, but I'm not sure if there's a certain magical time period to book.

I can get so aggravated checking tickets and obsessively worrying about them going up or down over. We like using google flight alerts to help this. Some people like to search and stalk flights, but I, personally, don't enjoy the planning the flight. It makes my trip stressful before I even leave!!

Given we only fly business, we've been using travel agents. www.letsflycheaper.com. It's just easier to have someone who's experienced in pricing and air travel do everything for us and we know it's going to be cheaper than what we could get on our own. We used to use alpha flight before this but we had a terrible experience and decided to look for other agencies to give us cheap business class tickets. So far no problems with Let's Fly Cheaper.

David in Florence AL -- Wow, what a comprehensive and helpful comment! Lots to think about there, even for someone who's been doing this for a while . . .thank you.

Also Janet -- I like your perspective!

A question - how does one search for cheapest Euro destination from home? Do you literally just keep plugging in city names to your search with fixed dates?(and then move the dates if necessary)

A question - how does one search for cheapest Euro destination from home

Googleflights and plugging in different flights and dates.
Sometimes I buy separate tickets say for example Chicago to Copenhagen on SAS
and Copenhagen to Paris on Norwegian if it is cheaper

Kim, go to Google Flights, enter your home airport and choose Europe as your destination. If your dates are firm, enter them. If not, pick a month and an approximate trip duration. You'll get a whole list of cities and fares. That can get you started toward finding bargain destinations. Understand, though, that the places that are comparative bargains in July or August may not be your cheapest options in October or January. And if you have access to more than one origin airport, you should go through this process with all of them.

Quick caveat on Southwest: Southwest does not fly to JFK. If you use SW to get to LGA in NY for a connecting flight out of JFK, you're facing an arduous/expensive bus/cab/public transit transfer across Queens. Flying via EWR will eliminate this problem (although it looks like there are not nonstops from BHM to either NY airport.)