My husband and I are thinking of going to Germany in June 2010 for a "milestone" birthday. We will be staying primarily in Western and Southern Germany. I am wondering if anyone has any advice on cheap airfare?

It's way too early to know what airfares will be like in June 2010. Right now there are some good deals but mostly for travel thru May 2009.

You know that the airfare is market based, right?

Since your trip is so far away, my recommendation is to record week to week price trend and last minutes offers of the route you are interested starting now. This is not to say that the same exact price trend repeats next year, but you have at least some empirical data you can rely on to decide when and where to buy tickets.

About the only thing that does not change is that the airlines rather want to fill empty seats at price more than the price it costs them to serve you.

June is "usually" not such time frame with empty seats. Airlines know historically that the travels spike up in June and have no incentive to offer low fares.

If you study the fare patterns and last minutes offer time frame, you can attempt to take advantage of such offer in 2010 but again no guarantee that the offer repeats next year. I have not seen such offer, at least on routes I travel, that extend into June. They usually end in April.

There are strategies, but no sure solutions.

I would watch airfares for Dusseldorf and Stuttgart too. Sometimes there are better fares to those cities. Since you mentioned Southern Germany also, add Munich to your fare watch list.

Keep an eye on when the school vacations occur in various cities as this will cause a good spike in airfares. Here is the website I use to see when vacations are in the various states. Just so you are aware, German states stagger their vacations, so for example, Bavaria may be off, while Hessen isn't.

http://www.holidays-info.com/School-...days_2009.html

Hi JJ.

I think that the cheap fares for your flight will start showing up around Dec, 2009.

If the economy picks up later this year (big if?) then cheaper fares in June will be tough. To track fares I use Orbitz and Kayak, though I buy from the airline. Track fares for various airports if you have reasonable access. Airlines have sales so you have to be willing to buy if/when fares drop.

Regards, Gary

Also take into consideration your "home" airport. Which airlines hub there, if any? For instance, we routinely use American but DD in Houston uses Continental and gets better prices for them.

We are going in and out of Frankfurt in June 2009. We found the best fair in January, $550 per person roundtrip. This still seems to be the lowest too.

It is on US Airways and it was right after the crash so that may of had something to do with it...

Thanks for all the information.

I think I should have finished my thought initially.

When we went to Japan, I posted looking for the "best" airline we could take traveling in coach, because my husband is 6' 4". I got really great feedback about www.seatguru.com to check leg room in each type of plane, airline, etc. But someone also told me about a travel agency based out of Los Angles, and we saved a couple of hundred dollars each person.

We know why can't get tickets right now, we are just trying to find the best avenue for when it is time.