Anyone else notice the $$$ airfaire to Europe last week of June?
 

My DH and I are trying to fly to Europe from Boston the last week of June for our 5 year anniversary, and the airfares are absolutely insane. We've been trying to find decent airfare for 6 months for that week, and still have not bought tix, b/c we thought for sure they could not stay at that price. We wanted to go to either Paris or to the Greek Islands, but we've looked at several other destinations, and the cheapest we can find (for bad, inconvenient flights) is in the $1500 range EACH. Generally, anything decent is closer to $2000 each, up to $2500 each. It's absolutely insane. What is up with the last week of June? Has anyone else noticed this?

Oh I have noticed! We are going that same week, and airfare cost a bundle. I started looking in late December, and if you can call it that, lucked out and got our flights for "only" $1700 each. Ouch! The good news is that I have kept checking out of curiosity, and it has only increased. So at least we didn't pay more. But still...I know exactly how you feel. Look at it this way...buy the tickets, go and don't look back. Something you just cannot put a price on:)

The last week of June means you can bleed into the first week of July, which means holidays. Lots of employers may give long holiday breaks around the Fourth.

I've noticed too. We booked our tickets for June 25 last September---DH thought I was crazy. But those same tickets (on SAS) now cost double what I paid.

Still, $1500 to $2000 sounds pricy from the east coast. Did you try leaving different days of the week, or is flexibility not possible?

Yes. We are visiting NYC, Boston and Maine this year because of it. With kids in high school, there are all kinds of "mandatory" things they have to do over the summer, so I can't buy tickets 11 months in advance like I used to. For spring break, I paid $620 per person (including tax) for us to get to Barcelona. For Amsterdam in early July, I couldn't find anything under $1400. We'll just combine Holland with Germany next year.

Try watching www.1800flyeurope.com to see if you can come up with a bargain. We just returned on the 3rd from a 2 week trip to Turkey and bought last minute tickets from them (a week and a half before departure). Their fares sometimes were high and sometimes reasonable. Note: they change constantly so keep watching. I'd been watching fares for quite sometime too before I bought and they just kept rising, and as are you we were open to a number of different destinations depending on the airfare we could fine. But, finally I jumped on a good fare on this site (it's AutoEurope's flight site). I guess I should say we paid $900 each for a flight from Minneapolis to Istanbul (a pretty decent fare no matter what time of year). Good luck.

As much as this won't make you feel better, all I can say is I wish you'd posted here 6 months ago. Most of us would have told you to grab the cheapest thing you can find back then. With rare exceptions, the lowest fares for the summer are all gone now and prices WILL be exorbitant. I booked Miami to Paris in December for $900 and those same tickets are now at least $1500. Totally to be expected.

For future reference, also check out kayak.com. They show fares from all the different airlines. You have to check daily (I sometimes checked more than once a day). Got lucky in January with $650 from JFK into Venice and out of Rome for 6/29-7/11. That day, all the other flights were $1100-1300 except for one little Lufthansa flight. I grabbed it!

I did as SusanP did -- shopped on kayak.com daily. I would go on line at 2 AM or so. Prices went up and down over a one month period. In early May I caught the best fare in weeks for LAX-MXP for $1,250 mid July to mid August.

Tips. Be flexible in your dates, and in your airport. Think BRU instead of CDG, for example. Go mid week. Keep shopping every night after midnight.

We got a deal on American Airlines, traveling from San Diego to Paris CDG on THURS June 27 and returning Tues July 17 and they were still over 1200 each. when I looked previously on kayak, etc there were roughly $2000. Returning on a Tues instead of a Sunday helps though, and we got to add 2 more days to our trip. Boss is not happy, however.

Check fares to Stockholm and Copenhagen from Newark:

www.scandinavian.net

I found fares of $635 round trip leaving on June 19 and June 21. For that price you could taxi to Paris.

Thanks, Russ. I'll try that.

The american airlines have discovered that International flights are not quite as "price sensitive" as the domestic flights. I think the increase is basically seeing what the market will bear. If they can sell at those fares then they will and I can't blame them. I will say that my flight to London just before Memorial Day was PACKED so they must be selling at some price.

Have you though about trying a different destination this year -- Costa Rica or someplace where the exchange rate and the airfare will make this a much better bet this year?

A couple of great recent R/T fares from SFO and NYC to Costa Rica have been a little over $300 (including tax). With the money you save, you can stay in the best resorts the country has to offer. We had an incredible time seeing howler and white faced monkeys, live volcanos, hiking through rain forests -- oh, and coffee that rivals any cup in Paris... and you can bring some home for only $3/lb.

BOS-CDG on AA.com can be as low as $952 for last week of June, returning early July.

For example, non-stop 6/24 BOS-CDG, and then 7/4 CDG-JFK-BOS.

There are many other fares on AA and AF at $1,250 and under, including non-stop flights. I don't know where you're finding every thing $2,000 and up.

Or look at go-today.com. There are packages for Boston to Paris including airfare and 4 nights of hotel, starting at just over $2,500 for two people sharing a room. I picked 6/25 departure, but other dates available too. [Those are cheap hotels, of course, but you can upgrade.]

Yep - we noticed ;) My bf found out in late April that he would be going to Madrid on business and he wanted me to come along. Great I thought... and I also expected the airfare to be a little bit high. However, I was still SHOCKED when it came to a whopping $1754.xx through AA (MLI-Chi-Madrid) and I searched everywhere on the web, calling the airlines, and had my travel agent friend searching for the best airfare for me. Luckily, I was able to receive credit from an unused ticket in the past, so the price dropped to around $1400.xx. Still, it's pretty painful.

In comparison, we scored a bargain back in January to fly MLI-BER in late August/early Sept for about $700 through Northwest. It seems like timing is everything.