I am trying to buy airfare into London for early June from Atlanta and I don't know if I should buy now or wait till after March 30th? I am posting a price on priceline...Has anyone bought through priceline and were you happy with your results?

Thanks

People don't post much about using Priceline for airfare-mostly hotels.

Have you looked on biddingfortravel.com? It would show other people's experience (ie what they paid). Warning, there is about $100 in taxes per ticket on these tickets & you should make sure whether that's incuded in your bid or not. I remember some time ago someone I know bid on Priceline & wound up paying MORE than buying it from the airline (and having to make a connection) because she didn't realize they added taxes on top of the bid. Not sure of that's still the case.

Very few winning transatlantic flight bids have been posted on www.biddingfortravel.com (a key resource for Priceline users) which may be because nobody's won good fares, or else nobody's posted their results.

I'd approach it this way: go to the individual airline websites (not Expedia et al) and see what their best prices are for your dates. Then go to Hotwire (not PL) and see what the quote would be for the same dates. Neither PL nor Hotwire will tell you which airline you'd get, nor the departure/arrival times, but at least Hotwire will give you an idea of where your bid on PL would likely end up, give or take.

From our research, neither PL nor Hotwire seem to offer savings that are significant enough to warrant the uncertainty of carrier, timing and number of stops.

I would probably wait another month or so before booking for early June, but I'd also sign up for every frequent flier program out there, and get email notices of seat sales or other freebies that might get the cost down. If the dollar continues to sink against Sterling or the Euro, the price of doing business across the pond will continue to go up through the spring, and fares might get more expensive the later you wait, so don't be scared of locking in whenever it seems right. Worst case is you probably won't get burned badly if at all.

And while you are waiting - sign up to Travelzoo.com ThisweekTop20

Or check it out now for Europe sales.
I've also seen awesome pricing on Bestfares.com

A person on an AOL board who lives in Atlanta has gotten PL bookings several times at good prices. I think the uncertainty of air to Europe is not very great since virtually all flights are overnight flights--leaving the east coast in the evening. The advice of "reserving" $100 or so in your bid to account for taxes is good advice. However early June is beginning to be the popular time to travel so it may be difficult to get a really low fare.

I've always had Priceline list the complete cost prior to having the customer commit to purchasing. This includes your bid, taxes, PL fees etc. So, you will have a bottom line price to compare to other web fares, airline quotes etc. If that has changed, and I don't think it has, avoid PL.

What happens is that you enter your bid, pre-tax and pre-fee, and then Priceline gives you the total amount before you agree. So just watch that total.

Judging from the BFT board, people get their best fares within a month or two of travel. It's not as great for fares a long way out.