Hi,

I have so enjoyed reading all the posts since I found this wonderful site and great folks willing to share their knowledge.

I'm planning to take our family of 4 (2 adults and 2 DD 9&12) to London in June of 2008. I have been pricing airfare and really don't know what is too high or how low it can go...and if it might go lower how long can I comfortably wait to purchase.

Currently USAir has $928 pp including tax. It make my heart skip a beat or two but is that reasonable or should I wait and keep checking?

We're planning to leave around June 11 and return around June 23. I say around because we can decide which days have the lowest fares.

Thank you

I think that is reasonable. June is high season. Last June fly Phil to Rome for just under $1000. I watched for a long time, it did get close to $900 once but always over 1000 for most of the time. You can wait and watch for a while but doubt it would get a hundred dollars cheaper. There are places to save a couple hundred dollars in your travel budget than fussing over airline prices.

It is a guessing game and no one really knows.

My guess is... $700 - $750 at most. I fly from Newark or JFK, so maybe PHL would be a little more, maybe not.

Keep checking www.kayak.com and www.airfarewatchdog.com, as sometimes specials pop up. Last summer, we got a $413 special to London on Virgin. This was a limited time special that we just happened to find by checking and re-checking for cheap fares. The summer before, we paid about $650 per person to London on Continental.

Are you checking all the London airports? It really doesn't matter which one you fly into, in my opinion.

I think your timing is good. I would think early June might have some nice specials popping up.

In my experience, any time I have checked both destinations, it is usually a few hundred dollars more to fly to Rome than to London. This year, the rates for Italy have seemed very high. Just my opinion...

Thanks for the quick reply!

It's rather addictive to keep checking if the fares go up or down - better than checking the scale.

I would love to take Virgin but they don't fly out of Phila. and I don't think any amount of money would convince my husband to go to JFK.

What about Newark? We flew Virgin out of Newark. It's not too far from Philadelphia.

Forgot about Newark!!

Thanks

The trick is to set a price you will buy at, say $750. If it gets down to that, buy it. I check a couple times a week until 4-5 months out, then I every day.

Last year (June 2008), I was checking for fares from Miami to Dublin. I found a one-day sale on Travelocity from Miami to London for $488 plus taxes, then grabbed a low-cost airline flight over to Dublin - total all in $650. The sale happened in mid-February, as I recall.

Also, be flexible if you can. With your daughters you may need to wait till June for school, but I was able to save a lot this summer by leaving around Memorial Day instead of just a week later. Our flights were a little under $800 each, connecting from Nashville through PHL to Manchester and then flying home from Shannon. We bought around Thanksgiving.

We are flying to London next summer from ORD and so far, our estimate (which includes student and group discounts) is $950. It might go down, but 2 summers ago, it was $850/ticket. We are a bit farther though.

Two ideas for you:
1) Check out Newark. We were just able to book Continental out of Newark to Madrid for $532 pp rt taxes included.
2) Out of PHL check BA over and over. WE used them last year to Heathrow. I don't have the details handy but I know the price was less than $928. They are often lower than USAir.