I'm in the planning stages of going from London to either Rome or Venice(haven't decided which yet)for a day or two in February. Is it too early to look at buying seats on either Ryan Air or Easy Jet? Should I wait a few months? I've also checked B.A. but you need to log into their site as a UK resident in order to search these flights, would I still be able to purchase these tickets since I live in the U.S.?
If these questions sound stupid forgive me but I've never gone from the UK to Europe before. Thanks.

It is, indeed, too early to buy - - on Ryanair, at least - - start looking at about 90 days befoer the travel you seek.

Best wishes,

Rex

Hi Princess,

The reason for choosing UK as country of residence is that the BA site requires you to select a city of origin from a drop down menu.

You can still purchase the tickets.

It's early yet. Start looking for specials on BA.

ttt

Thank you both. I thought it might be too early but since I just bought tickets on BA to London in February I thought maybe the other airlines would have deals now as well. Thanks again.

RyanAir flights to Rome are actually on sale NOW. The cheapest have already gone, though if you're flexible with your dates you can still find a good fare.

EasyJet winter flights are coming online now. Stansted-Rome will be available in the next few days. Check every day and be ready to book. The best fares go very quickly.

www.easyjet.com
www.ryanair.com

To get the best fares with these companies you always need to book 6 months in advance.

With RyanAir you can already book now for flights for next June on some routes.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Hi Princess - book EasyJet NOW. Flights from Gatwick to Venice are now on sale - they on sale on 24/7. I'm going for my birthday and we got a fare (for travel in March) of £40 each. Amazing!! I have flown with EasyJet before. It is a very good service. No seat reservations but for that price, who cares!

Good luck!
AP

Ditto about booking Easyjet now if you want to go with them. A lot of their winter schedules have just come out. So if you want to fly from Gatwick, the sooner you look the better. Not all the flights for February have been released from Luton and Stansted yet but they will shortly.

Ryanair seems to work slightly differently that their best fares (unlike Easyjet) are not necessarily booked as far in advance as possible. They ocasionally have sales and special offers a couple of months out from travel.

I have just bagged Gatwick-Budapest return on a weekend for £40. That's sure to go up soon as seats get booked at that price.

I think this is a <i>very</i> recent change on Ryanair - - and similarly, ther nine new routes from London Luton are new also - - so I hope that tudorprincess comes back here to see the advice from Steve James. I feel bad that my answer is not accurate right now, though I would have sworn that only two days ago they only had schedules up through fall.

Also new - - though not <i>as</i> new - - is that Ryanair now does allow changes to tickets, but more recent (perhaps?) is that the changes are &quot;do-it-yourself&quot;, online.

Continuing to distinguish themselves from the higher-priced &quot;full service&quot; airlines!

Ryanair flights for early next year have been on sale for at least a month right now - I check every day for bargains. Easyjet are releasing flights for later this year and early next year in blocks, I'm waiting for the fourth block where I presume all the bargains from Luton and Stansted will be added.

Both airlines have sales on routes all the time. You should alway buy as early as possible, and keep your eyes peeled for bargain possibilities. I flew to Venice from Stansted for 25GBP return over the new year period a couple of years back. Beat that...

I'm glad I did check this thread again, I was just going to wait a few months to look for airfare. Does it really matter which airport we fly out of as far as price is concerned? I haven't made hotel reservations yet but it's most likely we will be staying at the Gloucester Rd. stop. Thanks again.

Just a short comment on one of Ira's messages above. Unless things have changed in the last month or so, when you log in as a UK resident to BA.com, you can indeed book flights originating in the UK, which you can't do on the US BA.com website. Unfortunately, you can't pay for them unless your credit card is issued in the UK. Only the phone works for this. I know because I saw some flights originating in London that looked cheaper in Sterling than the fares I was able to see on Expedia or Travelocity; when I tried to book through the BA website it kept rejecting my card; I then had to phone the reservation in, and got billed the higher Expedia-quoted (less Expedia's $5 fee) fare. I complained to the BA CSR about this and he responded, &quot;Yeah, that's a nuisance, isn't it?&quot; Yeah. Same goes for Opodo.com, BTW, which is a shame - they often have good rates.

Princess - I can't see it makes much diference.

I just keyed in a couple of dates in February and came up with a return fare of &pound;32.50 inc.tax from Luton (RyanAir).

That's a good fare and it won't last long. I don't think Easyjet from Stansted will be any cheaper when it comes out. If I were you I'd book ASAP.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

tudorprincess-

To answer your question:
&lt; Does it really matter which airport we fly out of as far as price is concerned? &gt;

I would say Yes. Luton &amp; Stansted airports are quite some distances outside of London. So, before you book your flight, figure out how much transportation will cost you to any of the airports (for example, the Stansted Express costs &pound;13.80 one way).

Also, if you want the cheapest price on Easyjet or Ryanair, most of the time the cheapest flights leave early in the morning (like 6:30a), which is too early for you to take public transportation out to the airports. In those situations, you will be looking at an expensive cab fare from London. Make sure you figure all these &quot;extra costs&quot; before you decide which airline/airport to book.

I had absolutely no problem purchasing tickets for our london-Rome leg of trip, using the BA site, and my US credit card!
The price is charged as GBP, but it was as easy to do that leg of the ticketing as it was the Boston-London part.

Don't wait, I made mistake of waiting and the BA price went up $80 US per ticket.

and definitely take into consideration the location of these other airports.
For us, it worked out to be cheaper to book with BA.

One final note to tudorprincess - - and this is not to excuse myself or rationalize giving you an answer that was not on target - - but there IS the option, on your forum &quot;profile&quot; here, to list your e-mail address publicly (as I do). If more people did that, then it would be possible for a &quot;good Samaritan&quot; to let you know when important follow-up info has been added to a thread.

Nanb, that's good news (using the BA UK website w/ a US-issued credit card.) When did you do this?

If you didn't notice Easy-jet just added a Gatwick to Venice new route.

O.K. before I commit myself to buying airfare I have a few more questions. Is Luton or Stansted further than Gatwick?
My husband wants me to also check out rates to Paris before we buy tickets to Italy. I'm finding &pound;129 return on BA. Would the Eurostar be less money and which site is best to buy Eurostar tickets or should we wait until we get to London and buy them at Waterloo.
I know I sound insane but we just can't make up our minds as to which city we want to see. It mostly comes down to travel time and which city would have more to offer.
We are in London for 8 days and I don't want to spend most of it out of the country. Only 2 days at the most abroad.
Thanks again for all your help.
Rex, how much unwanted email do you get from posting you address?

Check out http://www.flybmi.com for cheap tickets from LHR-CDG. EasyJet also has cheap tickets from Luton.

Both Luton and Stansted are further away than Gatwick.

This is probably the quickest way to get to Luton Airport: You first have to get to Kings Cross (probably by tube). Then you take a train from Kings Cross to the Luton station, which is 10 pounds. Then you take a free shuttle bus from the train station to the airport - about a 5-minute ride. I'm not sure how long the train ride is now - maybe 1/2 hour.

To get to Stansted, the quickest way is the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street station.

I can't see there is a rush to buy tickets for February. Start examining your options in a leisurely way.