mjs

I just bought tickets for four of us SFO to LHR for mid June and I have been looking at airfares for awhile. Missed the Virgin sale earlier this year when I was not sure of our travel dates. In any case airfares this year to Europe have been higher than in the past due no to oil prices, higher demand and fewer planes flying. Airfares to some places such as Japan, New Zealand, Australia and some parts of asia have not increased very much. I do not think your airfare to Florence is that bad as early September is still high season but you might have found less expensive fares if you were more flexable. Flying out of Baltimore or Philadelphia and into Venice or Rome or Milan might have found you much lower fares but with less convenience to your travel plans. We are headed to Prague, Budapest, and either the Adriatic coast or Switzerland and flying into London saved us over $500 a ticket at the cost of a 7 hour layover in LHR
and the decision to stay in London for 2 days on the return leg of our vacation.

stever

Thanks for those follow ups. We decided to just go for it as we are not flexible at all on the trip plans, the dates, and the cities we fly into and out of. That's why we went for it at these inflated prices. So, we'll just eat lots of cheap pizza and vegetarian sandwiches from local Italian markets to make up for the high plane fares .

Sometimes, ya just gotta pay the piper to get the flights with the exact times you want. We COULD have saved $200 if we had extra stopovers but wouldn't accept that inconvenience.

Regards,
Steve R