I'm considering another trip to Europe this summer, and have peridiocally been checking the costs of flights to a number of cities in a variety of countries. Most of the flights (for late June through July) are $1200+ per person. This seems quite high to me for cattle class, as we flew into LHR and out of CDG in July 2009 for approx. $700. Is it just too early to be looking, or have flights really gone up that much??

From where??

I'm in the same situation as you are, and the research I've done tells me it is simply too early to get a reasonable estimate on airfares this far out. I'm hoping we'll have some more visibility in February/March. I've gone through scores of scenarios on Kayak.com and Bing.com and from what I can tell, 4 months out seems to be the time when airfare drops to more reasonable rates, and 3 months out is more of a sweet spot.

Wherever you are from I would not buy tickets this far in advance. When you are ready to buy be advised that fares have risen greatly in the last year. For what it's worth everyone else is paying through the nose too.

I think airlines have cut down on capacity and routes this year which will affect travel for next year, thus you are seeing higher airfares.

We travel quite frequently to Europe each year, but we are bound by school vacation dates. So I know far in advance when we can travel. For example, we are going to Spain over the Christmas break and I was able to score tickets for $620/person, all in, from the mid-west to Madrid, 7 months in advance.(and this involves week-end travel). But last January, our tix to Munich costs us a mere $590/person, all in, which I bought just a couple of months earlier.

IMO, there really are no hard and fast rules regarding the timing as to when to buy airline tickets.

Just for clarification: The tickets I bought for our trip to Munich was for Spring Break 2009, which is mid-March. I bought them 2 months earlier in January, 2009.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-370747-2.cfm

I hope that it's early and that prices will drop somewhat at least! That would certainly dictate our summer holiday plans. Our regional airport is in Rochester, NY, but we aren't opposed to driving to larger airports (Toronto is probably the closest MAJOR aiport) if the price is right (considering all other factors like parking, hotels, etc).

Thanks all, I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed and make Kayak part of my daily online experience!

Just in case you weren't aware, you can set up price alerts on Kayak. I have a very similar issue - I'm hoping to go to Italy next summer, but so far tickets (from Nashville or Memphis) are running upwards of $1400 round trip. So at the moment I'm not going anywhere! I have a price alert set on a few different routes (for example, BNA-Rome and return Venice-BNA), and Kayak is supposed to email me when it finds a price below $900. We'll see if that ever actually happens...

I started looking for tickets to a ton of different locations (both Europe and other destinations) for late Dec. travel about 4 months ago, and I watched and watched and watched. For what has basically been a down time before, I saw European airfares that are about $200 to 300 more roundtrip than we've paid in the past. We ended up choosing Mexico instead, and after watching those flights we bit the bullet and paid much more than we've ever paid in the past. I'm glad I purchased when I did because fares never dropped and have gone through the roof as we get closer to our departure date. And, there are basically no seats available on the plane; they are nearly all sold out.

We have date and location flexibility, and I am also watching prices for a possible May trip; those European airfares are also high, high, high even when trying to use a flexible date finder like itasoftware.

You might consider the British Airways credit card deal which is still available on their website. You get 50,000 miles with your first purchase, which you can use for 2 tickets @ 25,000 miles plus $290 each. That would get you to any of these countries in Europe Zone 1, which includes the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland, for $580 total. This is from New York or Toronto, so you'd have to add something for the flight to that airport.

I checked the "reward flight" availablity, and it looked like there are still lots of seats available in June and July to many destinations in France, Germany, and Switzerland. Going to Geneva from New York, for example, you could fly any day in June or July. Seats from tornoto are more limited, to 3 or 4 days in each month.

We are using BA miles for our family trip to Italy next summer. Two of the tickets I paid for and then upgraded with miles. I checked the current price of those tickets for the same dates, and they have gone UP in price since I purchased them last June.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I know that traveling to Europe in the summer is a high demand time, but unfortunately I'm stuck to a late June-August timeline thanks to my teaching schedule. Good luck to all who are waiting to book, hopefully it changes for the better!

Check the days you're trying to book on. Make sure it's a Tuesday/Wed/Thursday if at all possible for both your trip over and return. This past July I flew RT from Phoenix to Dublin for $624 RT.

Also, try checking Orbitz and a few other sites, but with the "direct" button checked. I recently noticed that Kayak searches/even Orbitz searches were omitting direct flights, even though they were cheaper.

Start browsing Airfarewatchdog and sign up for Travelzoo's top 20 alerts.

Keep in mind that LHR isn't always the cheapest. Madrid and Dublin are two alternatives that typically have excellent airfare/specials.

Also try tilting things a week forward/backward. Special events (like the Dec 16th-Jan 8th window going on right now) typically see prices double. Where as tickets booked Dec 15th-Jan 10th are exponentially lower.

Hope that helps!