Airline ticket prices MIA-CDG-LON-ATL
 

Fodors friends - My husband are traveling to Morocco in October, but we will route ourselves in and out through Europe. Although we are fairly frequent travelers, I am finding that I don't have a good sense of the overseas airfares right now. We have some time restrictions on the outbound (arriving Paris on 10/17) because we have a 1:20pm flight from Orly to Fez. Coming back we are going thru London, but we are there for a few days so we don't have to worry about timing.
I found a BA flight (non-stop both ways) for $1250, and there are a few others for 1050-1100, but they have stops, take much longer, etc.
Any thoughts on the $1,250 fare? Two years ago we paid that same amount to go to Germany/Austria, and last year we paid $1,200 to go to Spain. I thought perhaps with the lower fuel prices we might be able to do better, but perhaps not. Maybe I already have my answer. :-)
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks for your time!

That fare sounds good to me. I think you are expecting discounts over a fare that is about the same as you paid two years ago. The fuel prices aren't that much lower now, they were for a while, but are going back up and airlines don't really discount airfares far in advance based on current oil prices at all, from my experience. Not to mention other costs have probably gone up like labor, food, cleaning, maintenance, aircraft, who knows what.

So I think it is unlikely if you want a nonstop flight from MIA for less than that to find it. As you noted, you can easily find others that are cheaper but not nonstop.

Isn't American the only airline that flies nonstop from MIA to CDG and nonstop from LHR to ATL? So if that's what you want, I don't know what you can do other than accept their price. You can check their codeshares for the same flight (BA or Iberia or Finnair), sometimes I find fares a little cheaper on one of those than the other (and usually it's the European carrier where it is cheaper for some reason).

I'm paying about $1400 this summer to go to Poland and return from CDG and that was not higher than all the competition, for example. And oil prices were a lot lower than now when I booked that ticket. Now I would expect fares to be about $200 lower in October, so your fares seem normal to me.

Thank you Christina. Enjoy your trip to Poland!

www.itasoftware.com shows many possible routes from MIA to Fez, some for less than the figure you quote. The transfer times in Europe to the Fez plane can be substantial, which affects price. This site, part of Google, only shows information. To buy the tickets you can go to the appropriate airline. Be sure to use the multi-city or multi-destination function rather than shopping for individual flights.

Why not take the Eurostar Paris-London?

I trust you do realise that if you miss your flight from Orly to Fez then unless you have paid extra for a flexible ticket you have to buy a new one - and one for the return leg also. You also do know that Orly is a different airport to CDG

Are you using the same airline for the whole trip or are you using a so-called budget carrier for any of the segments?

I realize the seamlessness of using one carrier is advantageous but it can add a tremendous amount to the overall fare.

Hi Dukey - Thanks for your reply. I am using different carriers for the Morocco flights. Royal Air Maroc from Orly to Fez and Ryanair from Marrakesh to London. That $1,250 fare is only the US/Europe piece.
Dotheboys - not sure what you mean about the Eurostar? We are not traveling between Paris and London, and CDG does not have any flights to Fez on the day that we travel. We have to go to Orly.

Southam - Thanks for the itasoftware advice. I will take a look before I book the transatlantic flight.

Happy Father's Day to all and thanks for your advice.

Ryanair will not show up on www.itasoftware.com and the airline does not connect to any other airline. Royal Air Maroc is listed so you can see if it is cheaper to buy that leg as part of a multi-city package. For one-way flights in Europe I like www.skyscanner.com