When do they start? I am hoping to convince DH to take a fall trip to either Italy, France or England but am going to have to use cheap fares to convince him. Any ideas for when I should start watching or good website tips?

Boy, I'd sure like to know the same thing. I've been checking out fares to Italy in September on all sorts of websites for the past two months, thinking, they've got to come down sometime soon, and just this week they jumped up another $100! I'm starting to get really nervous...

Hi,

My guess is that you have a 60% chance of saving $70 between now and mid June and a 40% chance of losing $100.

The price of oil remains high.

...and September hasn't been an air fare bargain month for a long time.
Lower fares usually start around Nov 1, give or take a week

swalter -- you helped me on the chicago board a couple years ago, so i assume you're leaving from chicago? i'm finding fall fares of $746 for chi to rom, $641 for chi to par and $550 for chi to lon. maybe you'd get enough miles for a bonus of a domestic flight between the two of you

I don't think you see seasonal promotional fares until one-two months before the date. LIke right now, you'll see ones for travel in April maybe.

I wouldn't count on any cheap fares to those locations in early Fall. I agree with Elaine -- they usually are for flights in November or other times in the winter, and those won't be announced for a long time.

>>and September hasn't been an air fare bargain month for a long time.
Lower fares usually start around Nov 1, give or take a week<<

I watched the fares hover around $1,300 last year from San Francisco to Paris for our 4 week Sept trip. Finally, a $660 fare from British Air popped up one day & didn't last long. I grabbed it. No such luck this year. I figure with the gas prices, more Americans going to Europe, that I should not wait this year. I got a KLM flight for $1,050 - one stop (Amsterdam) open Jaw from SFO to Bordeaux, & returning from Toulouse France, on the exact dates & times I wanted.

Stu Dudley

Thanks everyone. We have enough for one free ticket on United and it sounds like we should just take advantage of that and pay the current asking price for the other ticket. I checked yesterday and they were hovering around $1100 for Rome in mid-October, althoughI'm not adverse to November but I guess the tickets would have to drop below $550 each to make it worthwhile. Doesn't sound likely.

P.S. Yes, hipvirgochick, we'd be flying from O'Hare. (Hope I gave some decent advice on you Chicago trip!)

swalter -- yes you gave me excellent advice on chicago. i think you told me about cafe iberico too. yum!

go to itasoftware.com and do a month long search for chi to rome starting 9/20 and you'll find fares for $746. you can't buy tix here, but you can get info and buy on orbitz or through agent. good luck! we're heading there next april ciao!

>>We have enough for one free ticket on United and it sounds like we should just take advantage of that and pay the current asking price for the other ticket<<

I would be surprised if they have any seats left for fall travel - except for perhaps late fall. Let us know if they do. I go to Europe for vacations two or three times a year, and I'm starting to give up on using Frequent Flyer miles. During peak periods, they never have seats available - I've been wait-listed for my Sept trip for about 4 months now. I actually just bought tickets on KLM, so I will have to re-deposit my tickets at a $100 per person cost.

For off-peak trips, I'feel guilty wasting a free FF ticket when the fare is only about $450 anyway.

Stu Dudley

hipvirgochick, thanks for the website information-what a useful tool! I'm going to have to see which area will be the easiest sell to DH. Stu Dudley, I'm calling United this afternoon to see if I can get anything. I was thinking October so maybe I'll have better luck than Sept. --I'll post back.

Check fares on all these sites before you call United or anyone else:

www.mobissimo.com
www.itasoftware.com
www.onetravel.com
www.kayak.com

You may not need to wait for a "sale."

BA has been hovering around $533 for travel from ORD-LHR in late Oct. That was up from $483 3 weeks ago.

I just booked Chicago-Manchester/London-Chicago yesterday for $631 on BA with the return leg in World Traveler Plus. Without the upgrade to WTP, it also would have been $533.

I don't know whether it was a good fare or not, but it was a fare we could live with and our dates are not flexible.

Call me paranoid, but I always clear my cookies when I search for fares online. I was tracking fares to Milan last winter, and they seemed to rise each day I checked, then when I cleared the cookies, they would go back to the starting point.

Was this just a coincidence, or are they really watching us???