I've flown to Europe several times, but always in the off-season, and always for less than $550 from Florida. My brother suggested we fly to Germany for his birthday in August and I was shocked to see fares over $1,000. Is this normal? Are they likely to go down as the time gets closer? Or is it all because of fuel prices?

Before you make a final decision make sure you look at the following sites at a MINIMUM:

www.mobissimo.com
www.kayak.com
www.itasoftware.com
www.onetravel.com

Also check to see if Continental is still offering their sale prices to Europe.

Postal, a fare in the neighborhood of $1,000 to Europe from many places in the U.S. during the high summer season can be considered in the "normal" range. You can do better than that and the sites that Intrepid1 cites are a great starting point, but it's not all that uncommon to see double a low season fare. Fuel prices aren't nearly as much of a factor as demand and competition are.

<<I was shocked to see fares over $1,000. Is this normal?>>

Yes.

Were you thinking that the off-season fares (why do you think they are called off-season fares?) are duplicated in the high season?

I think that the odds of finding lower fares closer to August... are very low.

But see http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34606944

Best wishes,

Rex

Air fares do change some over the years. That fare is normal for this summer, but was lower a few years ago. Air fares do not usually go down closer to the date, usually the opposite.

I ended up paying that last July (over $1,000), and that was from a consolidator! I bought my ticket at the last minute, due to my dad being ill, and ended up paying more than I planned. Look for sales, but I think this year, unfortunately, $1,000 is not out of the question, even if you buy well ahead of time.

Use ITASoftware.com and set up multiple searches. Try to be as flexible as you can with airports and dates. Use Travelocity's flexible date search and Fare Watchers. Try Orbitz' Fare Watchers. Sign up for all the known specials. Try Hotwire and Priceline (after fully educating yourself as to the drawbacks).

Even with all of these in place, though, you will likely need excellent luck to get a lower fare. The past two summers I have gotten winter-rate airfares to Europe, but in each case I was searching diligently for weeks and hit a lucky strike about 5 months in advance.

I don't know what airport you want to fly from or to. But Iceland Air might have relatively good deals for you from Orlando to Frankfurt.