Airfares 2008
 

It's been about two and a half years since we flew internationally. We are at the beginning of our planning stage of a April 2009 trip to Greece. We will be departing from NYC.

We are a bit taken aback by the cost of international airfares these days. Hopefully the recent drop in fuel prices will affect airfares like they did when prices rose when the price of oil skyrocketed earlier this year.

In the past we have used Orbitz, Priceline or Travelocity to find the cheapest flights. Are there better sources for discount airfares or is there no such thing anymore?

Thanks,

Cheryl and Bob

You can use kayak.com and it will find pretty much all fares out there (including orbitz, travelocity, etc.) for your destination. If you are flexible, and don't mind connections you ahve a higher chance of finding a better fare.

I hate to tell you this but I don't think the drop in jet fuel prices will help very much. The airlines lost so much money this year and it will take a long time to recover. But I wish you luck anyway.

Kayak is indeed a great resource, but the last I heard they had a tiff with American Airlines so those fares are not represented. Be sure to check AA fares seperately.

I don't think you'll see airfares to Athens come down that much. For the past few years, we've connected through Paris or Rome, which gave us a slight savings on the total ticket price. From Paris, you can connect to Athens on an Air France flight. From Rome, I'd highly recommend AEGEAN airlines. Flight time from Paris is about 3.5 hours. From Rome about 2 hours. Good luck!

Forgot to add that I purposely left out connecting through Heathrow on BA, which I think should be avoided if at all possible.

A quick check on kayak.com turned up these round trip fares for April:

(1) New York-Athens-New York, non stop on Olympic $956

(2) New York-Heathrow-Athens and return, British Air - $1089

(3) New York-Heathrow on Air Canada - $554, then separate ticket
Heathrow-Athens on British Air - $293 for total of $847 round trip

For connecting through Heathrow, it's best to allow 3-4 hours.

More options on the website.

Watch out for Olympic Airlines. Their customer service is terrible, and the planes are often dirty.