IAD to CDG in late March - Pricey
 

I have been tracking these prices for a couple months - they are stuck at around $1,200 a ticket. Looked at Philly as an option, but that is almost as bad.

Should I take this as an early warning sign that our Paris vacation is going to be more expensive than I expected? Or, do you think I might see the prices drop in the new year?

I realize this is a crystal ball question, but any input would be appreciated.

Follow SAS and sign up for their email notices. Fly thru CPH to CDG. They have some amazing sales, every few months.

For whatever this is worth. This past February our daughter and I flew VIE to IAD (RT, nonstop, Austrian Airlines) for home leave and the tickets were ~1.300USD each, booked in late October of the previous year. Our son is in university in the US, and his RT for an August outbound and December return (VIE to DTW and back, one stop in AMS on KLM) for Christmas was 1.200USD. Similarly, he has a January outbound and May return (the reverse) for 1.000USD that I booked in September.

Also check Icelandair, they fly out of IAD, fares are about as low as they'll get right now. You can even have a 3-4 day stopover in Iceland, fun in a very different way from Paris:)

Honestly $1200 is a pretty good price!

Yikes - I am out of touch if $1.2K is a decent price. I had a fantasy of getting something like $900.

http://wowair.us

You pay for every little thing, but may be worthwhile

That's what it costs nowadays, so I think you are out of touch. I paid about $1500 last summer, prices in March are a little lower, of course. I can't imagine why you thought you'd get it for $900, I haven't seen fares that low in many years to Paris, even in winter. I fly out of IAD a lot so I know it is sometimes a little higher at IAD than some other airports, don't know why, but it is.

Just compare Air France to United, those are the only two nonstops. If you don't care about nonstop, of course, you can save a little.

Agree with the others than $1,200 is pretty standard these days out of IAD. That said, I think you could get lower at that time of year IF you're very flexible on dates and timing and IF you do not expect to fly direct.

I just plugged in 3/24 - 3/31 on orbitz and got $856 RT on Turkish Airlines with only a 29-hour and 16-hour layover, respectively, in Istanbul. ;-) Like Icelandair, which was mentioned upthread, TA might also allow long stopovers if that's of interest.

Ask yourself this question:

why would ANY airline discount prices in a market that has proven to be a revenue generator, especially in the summer?

why would any airline discount prices when they have removed enough capacity so that they are flying full flights more than ever before?

why would any airline discount prices unless they thought they could sell even more tickets than the competition while not adding capacity?

why would <B>any traveler</B> expect prices which have consistently risen each year over the past few years to drop?

BUT, if you haven't then you might want to create a price alert on Kayak in case the unexpected occurs.

Yes, to answer your question, your trip to Paris is going to cost more than you thought.

I also fly out of dulles and so far haven't seen any sale fares to Paris for this spring. I just flew on United non stop to Paris from Dulles last month for $900 but I was lucky and caught a very short lasting sale.

In March of 2013 I flew on Air France to Paris for just over $900 but haven't seen anything this low recently.

If you have the time and inclination you can book on United to Paris with an over night stop over in Athens for just over $1000 in March 2015. You could go to Athens via Zurich and then non stop to Paris from Athens and non stop back to DC.

It's a bit of a myth that all the flights to Europe are full. My flight to Paris last month was probably only 2/3 full. The return flight was mostly full but had quite a few empty seats.