I will be flying to Ireland in mid September and find the lowest fare offered is $857 from Aer Lingus. Does anyone know how air lines determine when their fares will rise and when they will fall, if the fare is the lowest a certain number of months before the departure date,etc. In the past I heard the best fares occur 6 months before but do not know if this is true. Thanks.

I am going at the same time and really don't expect prices to go down much, depending on oil prices they could even rise. We have found Continental to be the cheapeast so far and they are my fav. We go from MCO to DUB by way of Newark. Aer Lingus was more and they only fly certain days from Orlando. I have flown them before and would pick Continental over them anyday.

I just bought tickets for April. When I first started (mid January) they were under $500. I should have jumped on them but I waited a couple of days and all of a sudden they were up to $777! (This is out of JFK.) I checked every day for a week or so and suddenly they were down to $527, so I bought them. There really seems to be no rhyme or reason!

I think that using a Magic 8 Ball is as good as anything for predicting air fares. (I.e., as allisonm said, there's no rhyme or reason to it.)

I would suggest that you sign up with the airlines that you are interested in taking to Ireland. We did this a couple years ago with Aer Lingus and snagged a great rate when we got notice of a sale. We got a notice earlier this month about a Spring sale with Aer Lingus and booked ourselves another trip at a good rate for May. I find that they have sales on a fairly regular basis and I wouldn't be surprised if there will be some sort of sale for September.

For what it's worth. These increases apply now for high end travel.

Delta, American boost some air fares by up to $120

It's the second big increase in fares in as many weeks. Airlines eliminated many flights when oil prices were high and the economy was weak, giving them power to raise fares now that planes are more crowded and travel demand is rebounding

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Delta-...&asset=&ccode=

I agree - Aer lingus is having a sale now for travel through june 15th I think. I got flight and car for 6 days for $581 a person including taxes mid may. Longhorn maybe I will see you there I did try using frequent miles though and had a difficult time - I was told that Aer Lingus just slashed a bunch of flights so things are tight and not much available.

Good luck thirdgen!

thirdgen; I would strongly suggest you sign up for alerts from airfarewatchdog.com, kayak.com,and bookingbuddy.com. When we were planning our October 2010 trip I signed up for these and got an alert from airfarewatchdog.com with Delta and we got a much better price than what was being shown on other sites.
Are you flying in to Dublin or Shannon? More airlines fly into and out of Dublin so you get more choices on price. We fly in and out of Shannon since the areas we want to visit are the west and southwest and Shannon is very close by; less driving and more time to explore.
Hope you find your tickets "deals" and have a wonderful trip.
I can't wait to visit a 3rd time.