I am planning a trip from Louisiana to Rome/Italy in early September but have not bought tickets yet. The round trip tickets on Travelocity & Orbitz on good flights just went up this week from $1037 to over $1500. Do prices tend to vary this much? Should I wait for lower prices or pay this current high price to make sure I have a ticket.

Laugh if you want but United has offered 2 for 1 w/three hotel days.Check it out if you are a bit of a gambler.We are booked for July to Paris/ 3 days there and leaving out of London.Any thing c an happen any time anywhere to any airline that can affect any of us. FA

Well, I don't know where in Louisiana you're leaving from or what you mean by good flight, but if it were me, I would definately wait. I don't think you could do any worse. $1500 is really out there.

Check with the airline about their policy should the price drop after you book. My tickets with AA dropped $150 each the week after I booked; they credited me the difference with no hassle (but you have to call them if this occurs).

Delta will give you the BIGGEST hassle if their prices drop and wants to charge you the change fee. Personally I would wait. I bought a ticket for this coming weekend 21 days in advance for $600.

opps forgot to say this was from Nashville to Paris.

When searching for airfare to Florence, I found the best deals on Alitalia ($638 RT). Air France was a close runner up.

I suggest you try sidestep.com or qixo.com. I don't know your departure city in Louisiana, but I just did a search for flights from New Orleans to Rome in early September on Sidestep. The cheapest flights were $840 on Continental, $957 on US Air, and $998 on Air Canada--far less than the $1500 on Travelocity and Orbitz.

On qixo, the cheapest flights were $812 on Continental and $972 on Delta.

I suggest you keep checking these and other sites for a few more weeks before making your purchase.

I just tried US Air's web site and came up with $956.80 from New Orleans to Rome travelling Sept 2 to Sept 16. Search around using some other web sites--cheaptickets.com, flights.com, etc. Even $956.80 seems high for September, but maybe not from New Orleans.

I got 2 tickets from Alitalia round trip for $700.15 each. keep shopping

Be patient and wait. Watch for sales. It's too early to buy if you want a decent price, unless a good sale comes along.

Hi
http://apps.flights.com has RT MS/FCO for $620 + about $100 taxes and fees on US Airlines

Ooops,
forgot to mention: that's for Sept 3.

cpi:

I'm not sure where you're flying from in LA, but since a coupld of other posters had samply fares from New Orleans, I tried Baton Rouge. Here's what I could find:

www.airgorilla.com has RT from Baton Rouge to Rome for $789. That's including tax. Leaving Sept. 10 Returning Sept. 24. Definitely cheaper than what Orbitz is showing.

And there are many other consolidator sites as well. Don't rely on just Travelocity and Orbitz. You can get great deals on them, BUT they're not the only game in town. Consider the consolidators too.

As for how prices vary . . . It's not uncommon for them to fluctuate wildly in a span of just one day. You really do have to check every, single, day . . . sometimes more than once. I got my tickets for $460 (including tax), RT from Dallas to Paris for Sept. 18. The day before, the fare was $798. Then it dropped to the price I paid (at which point I snatched it up!). It then went back up to $798 the very next day. So it definitely pays to check constantly. You never know when that one-day-only, half price sale is going to hit!

Good luck,
Jennie

I have experienced even stranger fluctuations in the Air France pricing structure. Several days ago, I priced a June-July trip from Dulles to Paris. I fooled around with the departure and return dates a little, kind of found the cheapest permutation, then tested whether the departure and return TIMES alone on the same day would make a difference. A last gasp effort. I found the price to be a ridiculous $1300 if I returned in the afternoon from Paris. However, by simply selecting an early morning return to Dulles from Paris, the price went down to $560. Talked live to the Air FRance rep, she told me that several entities have their allotment of tickets, when they fluctuate, the price changes. It turns out that the afternoon flight (more amenable than the early a.m.) had run out of its allotment to Air France. I took the a.m., saved a lot. Get this-the next day I called for a seat change, got that, and went on line to see the price of the same thing that was $1300 the previous day for the afternoon return.....it had gone down to $490!!!!!! Took the lower priced package and ran with it. The next day, the price went back up. This is the problem with all the airlines. We need not only security, but affinity for the families and citizens that are flying. Same as the police in our neighborhoods, we need more in the street keeping the calm for the family homes, and less making the dollar setting up the radar to make the $.

what do you mean, we need "affinity" for the families and citizens that are flying?

I got $553 R/T from Chicago to Rome leaving Aug 30 - through early Sept. I kept checking the deals listed on Travelzoo.com until it was posted. (I bought via autoeurope.com). Travelzoo lists the deals so you don't have to do a lot of searching. I checked on the same flight at Orbitz and it was $1330, so I got an awesome deal. I would also recommend checking at odd times of the day, because the prices go up and down... Hope that helps.

cpi: One reply was absolutely correct on travel consolidators.

We are also going to Italy (into London and return from Rome in Sep/Oct).

We got r/t airfare of $375 plus tax, etc for the above. I've been watching fares for 4-5 months. Naturally we jumped on this.

Consolidator is Fly Europe:
1 800 359 3876
American Airlines

NOTE: You might consider going into London first (that has great fares to start from), then use the "no frills" to your Italian city. These include Ryanair, Easy Jet, Volare, etc.

Hope this helps. Ken Lansing

I assume all of you who replied to this post are american, but do any of you know any consolidators based in canada so we could purchase these tickets our prices are astronomical for flights to europe.

Suggest you check out britishairways.com. Sign up for their, and other airlines, e-mail specials--that's how I got our RT Seattle-Malaga tickets for $449.

Ken, sounds like you may have done even better. Where are you flying from?