Joanne: I bought 2 tix mid-August stl-italy. DH and MIL got the other 2 tix from stl-germany-italy-stl sometime early september. Actually theirs is a bit more expensive ~$1090 total. We fly AA/BA. I just plugged in our dates and itinerary both on aa/ba/expedia websites and currently they are running $1660/person. I think DH just got lucky with their fare because the day after it went up to $1387/person.Have not check what it is now.

Sorry, just saw... Houston.

NYC or Philly's out of the question I guess.

Houston is a Conntinental (sp) Hub iirc. Maybe sign up for the sales alert emails?

I've watching since august, (Houston-FCO then Milan-Houston) and haven't seen much from that area below $900 and they've been over $1000 since around September. I check kayak daily as well as Delta and Continental's sites.

I'll just keep checking. Is Travelocity the best website for alerts or is there a better one.

CO won't release the cheaper fare this early. Check prices once it a while now, but in earnest starting in around mid-Jan.

You may be able to find cheaper fares to London; then just buy a seperate ticket to Italy. That's exactly what I am doing this Christmas. CO IAH-LGW, then buy seperate tickets London-Italy and back.

Not sure I would use Hotwire. The least expensive fare is on Iberia. Prefer to fly British Airlines or Continental..

Look, Joanne....NOW you're getting a little picky..complaining about high prices and then talking about preferring this airline or that.

Don't want to use a discounter like Hotwire..then I guess you'll have to suck up whatever those preferred airlines are charging.

Joanne - We're going to Milan on Thursday (day after the day after tomorrow!) and out of Rome on the 06th of Nov. I *nearly* bit on tickets from Britsh Airways in May, but saw that two legs were operated by Alitalia, so looked them up--$300 less. Our two tickets were $729 each, from San Francisco. The stateside leg from SFO to JFK is run by Delta, which is fine. I've read some complaints about Alitalia, but we'll see--the price is great. Buon viaggio!

Joanne I 4 tickets Seattle to Paris, Rome to Seattle just last night and used kayak.com, which I really recommend. You can sign up for daily alerts if you like. I checked every couple of hours this past weekend and it was amazing how often the price changed. Painful to watch really, like gambling "will they go down...will they go up..."

I was almost resigned to paying $970 each, then put in a departure date of Thursday rather than Friday and found 4 fares at $833! Needless to say I clicked BUY. An hour later the same tickets were $950.

So - try Kayak, try different cities, try different dates.

Lots of good info here from everyone. I also use kayak and sidestep.com w/ good luck. Most travel sites now have alerts...and you just have to continually keep checking various sites and playing with dates, if you're flexible - available tickets change all the time - and it really is too early to be panicking.

fyi...I just checked Houston to Milan on Kayak and sidestep and saw $809 and $814 come up for 3rd week in June through Orbitz...so it seems like you can definitely do better.

Also check this site, which has an interesting list of strategies for approaching best airfares: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/Users...9/Default.aspx

Hello. We are going to Tuscany late May and June 2007 and just booked our flights through Orbitz via Kayak and got 2 tickets to Rome from San Francisco and return with only one stop each way for a total of $1591. I think we did pretty good but I don't want to check anymore because I don't want to find anything cheeper! Good luck.

Joanne,
Having just done Seattle - Rome, Rome - Seattle via British Airways through London, I'd have reservations on recommending it. Heathrow is an unbelievable nightmare, particularly for BA flights with the additional security measures. They're still setting 75 minutes as the standard transfer time between flights, but at this time that's generally insufficient, and the only reason we made our connections in London was because none of the BA flights are leaving on time. BA staff both on the flight and at Heathrow were surly, and unhelpful. If you must fly BA, try to leave yourself additional layover time in London.