susiedq

Just curious. I'm not finding any "good" deals. That is under $1,000 from the west coast. I'm looking at all options. I'm flying sfo to venice then Athens back to Sfo.

Have checked flying into London and then flying european to destination. but it has too many variables. i.e. leaving enough time for flight from england to venice, arriving at apartment later in day/evening. is it worth it to save a few bucks..

can't seem to bite the bullet. guess i'm afraid i'll book then a super low fare sale will occur.

I'm seeing all kinds of sale fares through March 31. Is that because it is a winter fare??

So much indecision..

Tim_and_Liz

Have you tried www.flycheapabroad.com ?

stoopswats

Our biggest issue was finding a place to spend five days in Tuscany in May so went ahead and booked through Travelocity from Chicago to Pisa and return for less then $1,000 each not the best rate but the place to stay was the tough part.

susiedq

Thanks Tim and Liz.

It's about the same as kayak.
I've been using kayak and expedia.

considering booking United so I can start the ff program for future travel..

Girlspytravel

Tim and Liz-flycheapabroad is NO cheaper than any of the other discount websites-in fact, susiedq, you'd do far better to go to www.kayak.com, which takes in all the airfare websites, and directs you to the website with the best airfare for your particular route.

I just tried flycheapabroad, and in fact, I got a FAR better deal for a January trip to Venice from the East Coast on both cheaptickets.com AND orbitz-some 70.00 dollars cheaper, as a matter of fact, than on flycheapabroad, for the same dates.

Tim_and_Liz

Girlspytravel,

Actually, IT IS cheaper. in some cases.

I was looking at kayak, expedia, travelocity, orbitz, cheaptickets for a trip MSP-FCO and VCE-MSP. I was able to find flights $150 cheaper pp on flycheapabroad.com just three weeks ago.

I am not saying it is ALWAYS cheaper, but you cannot say it NEVER is, because it was in my experience.

Girlspytravel

Tim and Liz, "never" is your word, not mine, and as for the website you mentioned, if it showed the cheapest flight, then it should show up on kayak.com, which is not, it should be stated, an individual travel website where you book fares, but rather, it gathers the cheapest fares from ALL the travel websites in its database, like I said, and directs you to the cheapest fare.

Tim_and_Liz

Girlspytravel-- Kayak.com does not show all fares. I know this for a fact because I found a cheaper fare on www.flycheapabroad.com.

Likewise, I have booked fares through Hobbit Travel here in MSP that do not show up on kayak.com.

I don't know if these fares don't show up on kayak because the companies have booked a group of seats, or for some other reason.

I know exactly what kayak is and use it routinely.

Tim_and_Liz

Looks like other fodorites have also found cheaper fares on flycheapabroad.com than on kayak:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34877550

scrb

I booked the week before Memorial Day weekend for just over $1100 including all taxes on AF from SFO.

If I booked a week later, returning in June, it would be higher.

Last year, I went SFO to FLR on AF, for $1300 plus, the exact same time of the year, which turned out to be high season in Florence.

Probably could have found cheaper fares but I went with SkyTeam for the miles I've been accumulating.

Girlspytravel

Tim and Liz, again, the words ALL FARES" are YOUR words, not mine, I said, "all fares in their database" which is NOT the same thing as saying "all fares."

And like I said, I just checked for January, and kayak.com showed $70.00 cheaper fares on orbitz than your website, so the moral of the story is, you need to check around, and kayak.com is a good place to start, because it will collate the travel websites in its database so you don't have to go to each of them individually, thus wasting time.

Hagan

Tim and Liz - I agree with you about flycheapabroad.com. I checked it several times a day for months, along with kayak, sidestep and a few others.

I found a fare from Daytona Beach to Paris, Paris to Rome, Rome To Daytona for $712 total for next March, flying Delta and Air France. I know you won't believe this, but it was nearly $1000 less than the other sites on the day I booked. The other sites couldn't come close. However, when I checked fares for the same route only leaving from Orlando, the flycheapabroad prices were nearly identical to the other sites. I'm SO thankful I booked last month, because a few days ago I checked back, and our airfare would be over $2000 each!!!

I really think they're worth checking on a regular basis, and I also think they're better for some particular routings than other sites. The truth is, fares are very volatile, enough to make your head spin, and you have to be diligent about checking many sites a number of times each day if you want to get a bargain.

rbnwdln

Children, children, stop fighting. You're making mommy and daddy so sad. Ha! Just kidding. The moral is - check all the sites until you can't check no more! Kayak is great but it doesn't always have everything, believe it or not. To answer the question - no, haven't booked for early June. We can fly out of Minneapolis, Chicago, or the New York airports and all flights are around $1000, unless you fly Iberia, which I prefer not to fly based on negative reviews all around. But who knows, worse comes to worse, maybe? I hope that after the first of the year and the winter sales wind down that there may be something better out there. Good luck!

fmpden

Cheap airfares may become a relative term. With the decline dollar reaching new lows, it is encouraging our European friends to travel this way and filling the planes. Airlines don't care if the round trip starts here or there as long as the plane is full. Add in the overall reduction in capacity and the number of discount seats is short. Am looking at fares to Rome in May for about $1200. In the end that may be cheap. About $400 over last year at the same time.

Girlspytravel

Well, and my response to that is, I bought a ticket last week on Continental from the East Coast to Cologne, Germany for the last week of May 2007 for exactly $357.00 round-trip-heck, I can't go to the mid-west for that, most days- and from Cologne, a city I knew well at one time, I can jump off to Dresden, and Brussels, where my best friends are-really, you can't beat that fare, and particularly, for late May.

So again, the moral of the story is, look and watch for those fare sales, they come few and far between, but they do come.