sandi_travelnut

I'm starting my research for a December trip and am looking at airfares...just keeping watch for that one great sale. The plan is to fly from DFW to London, then later train to Paris, fly to Venice, train through Italy and leave from Rome back to DFW.

What is the best way to find good fares for DFW-London / Rome-DFW tickets. If I look on-line at AA.com for instance, the fare is usually outrageous like $1200. If I call a travel agent she gets it for about $700. How can I find the deals on my own? I'd love to have an agent do it but they won't keep watch over the rates and call me if it hits a certain amount..I have to keep calling back every few days. It's easier to do it myself I think.

QC

I had the same problem.

Try Orbitz. You can easily enter an open-jaw/multi-city schedule and get a grid showing all airlines and fares for those routes. There is no obligation to buy, so you can just use the information to follow up with a travel agent or the airline. If you like the price you see, you can just buy it then and there.

For my upcoming JFK-Paris / Amsterdam-JFK trip, I did research on Orbitz but I bought on Expedia, which had lower fares than any of the sites of the airlines we are flying on, and it was a lot cheaper than the ones on Orbitz.

I did check online every single day (sometimes twice a day), but I got my fare for almost 50% less than the currently posted fares. A little work made a huge difference.

Legwork equals savings!

Jed

The 3 major flight search sites, Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity all have multiple destination searches. You could probably add the Paris-Venice leg to the itinerary.

ira

Hi Sandi,

This site will give you links to the major discounters

http://www.bookingbuddy.com/?source=...=BBSearch_Home

Also look at

http://airtravelcenter.com/onetrav.htm

Tey have your flight in mid-Dec for $601.

Keith

I don't believe that AA has flights to Rome in December.

Try ITA Beta and see what you think. You can't buy there, but it is a good resource. When I find a combination I like there, I try that airline's web site.

beta.itasoftware.com/servlet/cvgdispatch

Keith

rhkkmk

i was going about the same time as you are only last year....as you know the rates drop drastically on nov 1....i watched and watched and never found anything really good until sept 10 and then the really good deals came on oct 1...there were plenty of seats available on day one of these sales...
there is usually a sale in mid august, to try and get fall travlers ahead of the time when prices really drop
watch B/A (which is how we ended up going--it also allowed a "free" stop in london in both directions if you wanted), air france, delta, northwest of course, plus the american guys

cls2paris

I put a fare watcher (or whatever it is called) on Travelocy and Orbitz and then get e-mails from them when the fares drop. I haven't figured out to do the fare watcher for an open jaw, so I just do a RT for each place. Then, when I see that the fares have dropped for one, I run a new search for the open jaw trip and see if the sale applies there as well. I typically buy direct from the airline website when I find a sale.

cls2paris

Sorry, I forgot to add - in my experience the difference between the RT and open jaw is usually not much - $100. I have never seen a difference of $700. The way I understand it, they take the difference of the two fares, divide it half for the one way and that's your fare. I was recently searching MSP-CDG, Zurich-MSP and it was under $100 for the open jaw vs. RT to either place.

N2it

Sandi

I would wait until after September to price tickets. Your best prices are usually 60-30 days before trip although you may be in the December "high season". Also try lowestravel.com - you can do multi city iteneraries. Check prices 24/7!!

tcreath

I would have to agree with the Orbitz.com suggestion. I got a great open-jaw flight on a recent trip flying into Vienna and out of Rome, flying in and out of St. Louis. The airfare was little over $600/apiece. If you check orbitz.com, on the flight page you will want to check "multi city".

Good luck!
Tracy

sandi_travelnut

Thanks everyone. Just getting anxious to get going!!

sandi_travelnut

rhkkmk - where did you go last year in December? What was the weather like?

kismetchimera

sandi,
when I go back to Europe I always purchase Open Jaw tickets...

I usually go first to Rome my beloved city and return via Paris.
I believe that is too early to buy a ticket for December, unless of course, you find a fantastic deal...You are lucky that you live in DFW , I live in SAT and must pay more..
Since the internet, I never use a travel agent..I do my own search..Is much better, I can chose my own seats and which flight I want to take..It is nice to be in charge...
Buon Viaggio,
kismet

Clifton

sandi, it does seem like AA.com will often come up with some over-the-top prices for flights. Usually if you're checking too early. I fly AA if I can from St. Louis, another AA heavy area like DFW, so that's where my miles accumulate.

I usually like to monitor some of the sites like Orbitz, Expedia, OneTravel.com. I watch all the fares, but focus on whether AA is showing a competitive (not necessarily cheapest) price. Then I go try to match these flights on AA.com, which often turns out to be cheaper, as prices will have been adjusted as the timing gets closer. One recommendation I found really helps on AA. Search by "Fare" first but be sure to search by "Schedule" as well. Some sites like Orbitz will quote horrible layover times, like an hour for O'Hare or Heathrow, or 16 hours in Miami. Going to AA then when flights have dropped and searching by Schedule will let you pick somewhat better domestic flights, to get a more realistic itinerary.

And cls2paris has seen what I've seen on pricing for open jaw - mostly. For your plans, the cost of open jaw to London, return from Rome should be about the difference between the normal round trip rates to the two cities from DFW. (eg if rt London was usually around $500, and rt to Rome was $800, you could probably pretty safely guess that the open jaw would be near $650 as long as you were going both routes on the same carrier/partnership). These are pretty volatile markets though, so getting a "normal price" is hard to nail down. On less dynamic competitive routes, the price seems to stay very flat. I've been checking a St. Louis-Bucharest and Budapest-St. Louis open jaw constantly for the last couple months. Price has not budged more than 2 dollars!