phl5110

I'm going to the UK the first week of June and have been watching the flight prices for a while, and it's consistently been about $2700 from PHL to LHR for 3 tickets. The flat I'm renting is booked and other things I had to arrange, but because of the cost I had to wait to book flights until now. Just went to book them today and the total cost has gone up by about $2,000! The price is now $4,324 for 3 tickets. I'm shocked as I've never seen *that* much of a price increase in a week's time.

Does anyone know if there was something going on where overseas flight costs have increased this much?

The trip dates can't be rearranged (we're going over for a specific event) or I'd go at a cheaper time. I know prices are unpredictable, but it's been a while since I've traveled overseas and can't remember how far out I booked the tickets last time. I'm wondering if I waited if the price would likely go down, but also scared if I wait much longer it might actually go up...

Thanks.

Kandace_York

I don't know of a big event and I hope your tickets go down to a more reasonable price, but with overseas tickets the prevailing wisdom now is to book 3 to 6 months in advance. If you see a reasonable deal you're counseled to go for it.

Friday-Saturday-Sunday is usually a time that ticket prices increase, so you may try again Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday and see how they look then.

You're flying at peak time, when tickets will be at their highest, but you might also look into flying from a different airport. For example, we were able to score open-jawed tickets for about $550 each by flying out of Toronto -- and that was still $50 more per ticket than I could've gotten just a couple weeks earlier, if my boss had granted my leave request sooner.

Good luck.

Kandace_York

I just keyed in some random June dates to Kayak.com and found round-trip airfare for about $370 PHL-->YYZ, and round-trip YYZ-->LGW airfare for about $650 to $800, which would bring your cost per person to a much more reasonable $1100 to $1200 per person.

Kandace_York

Oh jeez. My apologies. I misread your post re: price for one ticket vs. three. Sorry about that.

Toronto would be cheaper than that shocking $4234 cost but still more than what you were seeing recently.

Gardyloo

Well, round trips from Philly to Dublin are around $760 in June, and Dublin - London round trips around $150, so you could save something going via DUB. They'd be separate tickets, so you'd need to give yourself plenty of time in Ireland to make sure you don't miss the connection, but it might be worth looking into.

sugarmaple

I just checked Hopper with random early June dates. Their prediction is prices will vary until end of April, rising after that.

fwiw, I booked in November, and the masochist in me continues to monitor the prices. They have, and continue to go up and down almost daily. Flights also appear and disappear and appear again on the one airline I'm travelling on.

Consider If you come through Toronto, you'll be clearing customs twice, Canada and UK.

We were thinking of going through Newark from Toronto to EDI, but a travel agent friend advised against that because of two customs. The airline also gave me the same advice. However, if the savings were considerable, it might just be worth the hassle, unless you've had the pleasure of experiencing Toronto's customs hall...

phl5110

Hi, thanks everyone. We're traveling with a 3 year old on his first international trip (pray for me!!) so the easier the better...so we really want to stick with flying out of PHL on that direct flight to LHR. I did look for flights out of EWR and they were just as pricey, though, and Baltimore was even more!

Thanks for the tip about Dublin, though! It would only be 2200 for the 3 of us to fly there nonstop from PHL. That might be worth considering and then hopping on Ryanair to London...

Kicking myself that we didn't book these last week!! My husband is running a race over there so the date is fixed and we can't go any earlier or later.

The only thing I can think of is the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations are the end of the week we'll be there (June 11) but don't know if that would impact the price so much.

Heimdall

There is a US Customs and Border Control point at Toronto Pearson Airport. When I flew back to the US through Toronto, I remained in the transient area and cleared US Customs and Border Control there. Since I was a transient, I didn't go through Canadian customs or immigration:
www.torontopearson.com/departing_to_usa.aspx#

greg

A major change in price like this, either up or down, can be a booking engine system hick up that can converge back down to a rational level in a few days.

Christina

Maybe but I am more surprised that it was consistently only $900 RT to London in June from PHL until recently. That is lower than I've seen in years to Europe in summer from where I live on the east coast. I don't find $1400 per person that shocking in peak season, although usually it's cheaper to London than many other European cities, so $1200 wouldn't have surprised me. $1400 is a bit high. But someone not that long ago on Fodors was noticing how high airfare was to London this summer, if I recall correctly. Maybe it was some other city, but I think it's a London issue.

You can get a nonstop RT flight from PHL to CDG at that time for only around $1040 on Air France, for example (5/29-6/7). I think it's some weird London thing. YOu could take the train to London and back, adding on a few days in Paris, or just fly (Easyjet flies from CDG to/from LGW for only about 125 euro RT, for example. Then you wouldn't have to go into the city to get the train, although that isn't hard by RER from CDG to Gare du Nord. The train would probably be more expensive roundtrip as I think it is around 100 euro one-way.

Depends on the itinerary and flexibility. You would save money by flying to Paris (about $400 per ticket) but then you'd probably add on days to the trip and have those hotel costs. For 3 people, that would be a $1200 savings. Even if I didn't want to spend time in Paris, that's only one flight change and worth a $1200 savings to me for 3 people.

I don't think this is an issue of overseas flights increasing, I think it is London. YOu can also get a RT nonstop fare from PHL to Brussels on those dates (5/29 and 6/7) for only $1112 on several airlines, for example. On those dates, you can get a nonstop RT from PHL to Frankfurt on United/Lufthansa for only $812, also.

Kandace_York

I must have been lucky when I landed at YYZ last fall -- customs/passport control was a breeze. No trouble whatsoever there or in Frankfurt or in Birmingham.

Now the Eurostar security team heading in to Paris, that's a whole other story...

janisj

>> Maybe but I am more surprised that it was consistently only $900 RT to London in June from PHL until recently. That is lower than I've seen in years to Europe in summer from where I live on the east coast.<<

Not IME -- $900-$1100 is what I've been able to get for the last several years to London <i>from the West Coast</i>. This summer the fares seem a good deal higher. I'm taking a friend to the UK in August - almost exactly the same time I went last summer and he is having to pay about $600 more that the fares were last year (I'm flying over Business but he is traveling coach)

Re the reason for your results -- doubt it has anything to do w/ the Queen's Birthday and Trooping of the Colour. The Trooping happens every year but this year is definitely more special. But a huge effect on airfares - no.

Other than alternative routes like via Dublin or Paris, not sure what else you can do.

historytraveler

In recent years with fewer flights and those almost always running to full capacity there is seldom any benefit in waiting for prices to drop. They might but usually not by much. So whenever you find a price you can live with, you should book. This is especially true for those who don't want to reroute their itineraries with complicated or unwanted stops.

Scootoir

We are going to London in May and found the flights about $300-$400 cheaper if we went the first two weeks rather than near the end of May. We decided to go a little earlier. We usually like to travel in September but the prices did not come down.

pgautam01

hi,

One strategy you may try is to clear your cookies in your browser and use a private window on your browser to search for tickets since the cookies embedded in your browser track your online activity and once you keep searching for the same fare over and again they tend to go up.

What would be even better is to clear your cookies and use a private window on your browser from a new IP address (different internet connection - from your office, friends house or any devise that doesn't share your wifi to get on the internet.)

This recently worked for me when buying 4 tickets from Mumbai to Zagreb.

Hope this works for you.

phl5110

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the insight. Just wanted to update that we booked the flights and stuck with the PHL-LHR route as planned. We were able to pay with part BA Avios at least, which took a few hundred off the price - ended up paying $4,000 total for 3 tickets.

I was worried the prices would just go up if we waited any longer, and after talking to friends who go every summer they said that price was in line with what they've paid in previous years (guess we REALLY should have booked when it was at 2,700 for 3 tickets!!). Ultimately changing to stay in Dublin or Paris wasn't going to work for us with the timing of the trip and with an active toddler, we wanted to keep everything as direct and simple as possible.