Minya

Hi
We will be flying to London from Toronto this May 2004 to celebrate our honeymoon in London and Paris. Although the trip is still many months away we have begun to search online for flights. Currently, we have found that British Airways ($690.87 return, per person) is the best deal. We want to ensure that we get the dates we want, but we also don't want to spend a fortune. Is this price okay or will there be seat sales the closer we get to the departure date? We have never flown to Europe before and we would appreciate any assistence.
Thank you.

Flyboy

I'm presuming you're talking Canadian dollars and the fare includes all taxes. That is certainly not a bad fare for May. It is difficult to say whether the tix can be had for less, particularly since you have some specific dates you're trying to hit. One thing you might want to do is to determine how much of that price is tied up with various taxes. (I don't really have a good handle on that because I don't originate flights in Canada.) Since many of the taxes are likely to be fixed, the remaining base fare is where most or maybe all of the action is going to be as far as price changes. If you're working with a base fare of, say, $500-$550 CDN then there is not a LOT of room for it to go down.

British Airways has been offering some great fares and extending them further out than what is typical. Again, I don't know the Toronto market for international fares and hopefully someone here can chime in with some first-hand knowledge. Just eyeballing it, I would not feel bad about locking in at that price at all. There is more room for it to go up than to go down.

Minya

Thank you for your response and help. Yes, the fare includes all taxes ($112.87)and is in Canadian dollars.

kodi

Hi Minya, I did answer your question on the other post, but wanted to make sure you saw this. I checked out www.flyzoom.com and found a flight for $539 all taxes included.
I think this Zoom is a fairly new airline in Canada, so hopefully your dates will work out. Good luck.

johnian

I think that this is a reasonable fare. Get an exit row seat. You may be able to get a slightly less expensive fare on Air Transat etc. however I always try for the majors on transatlantic flights- for one main reason. Firstly, if one of the charters has a mechanical problem/delay on a previous flight, it can really delay you. Typically the charters do not have reciprical agreements with other carriers and so will not place you on another flight. BA or AC is a good choice inasmuch as they problably have
2 and 3 flights respectively from Toronto. As an expample our AC flight from Mtl to Paris was topped up by Air France customers whose flight was delayed/cancelled.

Kate_W

If you can afford it, consider booking World Traveller Plus for your flight. (You'll find postings about WT+ here, but the basics are that you get a larger, more comfortable seat, about 38" (much better legroom), a separate cabin, but no lounge privileges, etc.). The price varies but it's usually about 1.5x to 2x the price of a discounted economy ticket - worth it in my opinion for a long-haul flight (especially a special occasion like a honeymoon). Sometimes you can choose to upgrade in only one direction (e.g. the flight over so you can sleep better).

If you're not leaving until May, you really don't have to worry about booking for quite a while, so you've got lots of time to watch for sale fares.

There is a small chance of getting upgraded to Club World (Bus Class). If Economy is full, they move some WT+ passengers up to Club (and there aren't a lot of WT+ passengers - only about 40). Try the following line nicely on check-in after being very friendly to the check-in agent: "How full is the flight in Economy and WT+ today? Is it full enough that they might upgrade some WT+ passengers to Club?" Smile sweetly. You might try mentioning after this that you're on your honeymoon, but it helps to emphasize that you know that upgrades are given because the flight is full, not because you're honeymooners.

I hope you're not planning to fly from London to Paris. The Eurostar is much more efficient (because it connects central London to central Paris).

Gavin

You have a reasonable fare with little room to go down. We have a similar fare with Air Canada in April. You might wish to consider AC's daytime departure to London. It leaves at 9 AM and arrives at LHR at 9:15 PM. No crappy overnight flight, I hate them. AC has about five daily non-stops between Toronto and London so you have lots of choice.

Minya

Hi
Thanks to everyone for responding to my email. For your information, we have booked our flight with BA through our travel agent (who was also able to beat the price by $10 each). We have also reserved both of our hotels in London and Paris.

I know that there is still time for seat sales, but with only a few months until our wedding, I wanted to have all of the details for our honeymoon finalized. Our wedding is taking place in the Mayan Rivera, Mexico, and with the honeymoon booked, I can spend more time finalizing the details of our wedding as we get closer to the departure date.

And with only a day and half between arriving in Toronto from Cancun, and departing for London, an overnight flight will allow us to have more time to unpack and repack, and get organized before we leave.

Thanks again for all of your assistence.