My family is headed to London in mid-August...any tricks to make the airfare less? A great website? Flying into a "weird'' place? Anything? thank you

From... Moscow, Idaho? Paris, Texas? Odessa, Washington?

sorry, from NYC

You could try flying into Bristol or Birmingham but "cheap" and "August" do not normally appear in the same sentence

August is generally the highest of high season. But at least NY/NJ > London is about the most competitive route around. So it probably will be cheaper to fly direct to London than to other cities. Just in case - also check out Manchester, Glasgow, Amsterdam, etc. There are relatively cheap ways to get from any of them to London. Unless the fare is quite a savings, it might not be worth the extra hassle.

The problem with flying to the UK is their high taxes-one of the highest. Most of my tickets to London have departure taxes from anywhere from $175 to around $190USD which is tacked onto your ticket.

There is no problem with "high taxes" when "flying to the UK" as the UK does not charge taxes on flights to the UK.

And regardless of "high taxes" you should be checking the final price of your tickets

dutyfree -- it is for flights <u>out</u> of the UK that the taxes are high. That's why we often recommend when one is doing multi-country itineraries like London/Paris, it is cheaper to fly open jaw into London, out of Paris and take the train between the two cities. Saves a lot of £/€/$

Of course, if one is flying R-T in/out of the UK, there are high fees/taxes on the return portion of the fare.

Janisj-I mentioned the high departure taxes as the OP mentioned only going to London.Sometimes the train between London and Paris is not quite a deal. My daughter lives in the UK and we have found that it is actually cheaper to fly to Paris than take the train.

"<i>Sometimes the train between London and Paris is not quite a deal. </i>"

That can be true, but if one books far enough ahead -- the Eurostar to Paris is less than the departure tax for a flight out of the UK

The train has a better on time record in my expereince.

And if they are going on strike?

And airlines don't go on strike?

Plus the train is city center to city center - you have to add the time and money to get to and from the airports to the cost of the plane.