Nancy45

Travelling as a family of six and have been looking at airfares for the past two months on expedia type engines, airline consolidators and individual airlines -- still the best I've found is about $945 all taxes included per person. Should I book now? Travelling from Raleigh,North Carolina to London and then returning from Munich to Raleigh during the height of the travel season late July.

Just want to know if this is reasonable. If I was travelling alone I'd gladly wait for lower airfares and take my chances if I miss the boat, but as a family of six if this fare is in the $100 ballpark of a good open jaw fare, I think I'll book them for peace of mind. ADVICE PLEASE!! You all always have great ideas.

I've been reading this message board since the beginning of January and people have said they've found great airfares for $200-$500 or so, but it's always unclear if they are open jaw and if they are travelling during the busiest travel season of the year.

Thanks for responding.

Intrepid1

have you checked at www.onetravel.com (a consolidator site)? I would also recommend mobissimo.com but don't think it allows searching for open jaw itineraries. How about kayak.com??
www.itasoftware.com?????

cf5657

Why don't you just connect back through London? You can fly Raleigh to London via AA for pretty cheap and then use Easy Jet or Ryan Air to Germany. It's not going to cost you that much more time to connect back through London. Also did you try doing a stopover using BA? They sometimes offer free stopovers that can get your rates down.

ncgrrl

Prices from RDU to Europe are never great. I see those sales about great fares to Paris, or other places in Europe, but see it's from NYC. Add in at least $150 pp for an RDU departure.

I like cf5657's response about r/t RDU-London and then onto Munich. I love the RDU-London flight. If you can do it mid-week, you might not have a full flight.

yoonny

Sounds reasonable to me, especially for open jaw during peak season. Good luck!

nytraveler

I don;t think your cost is related to the open jaw - typically these are just 1/2 the RT to either place added togehter. I think your cost is related to:

high season

days of the week - can you fly on cheaper weekdays vs Fri/SatSun?

do you have chepaer flight options - if you take the earliest or latest flights (most inconvenient) you can sometimes get cheaper seats

Or - as mentioned above - connect through London

The $200/$300 airfares you see are for the winter - you will never get them in high season!

vedette

Hey Intrepid -- Are you sure OneTravel is a consolidator? It returns fares no different from SideStep. Actually some of OneTravel's are worse.

Christina

It isn't the fact that it is open-jaw, but that you flying in peak season from a nonmajor airport. Being open-jaw isn't any issue.

Nobody is going to find $200-500 fares RT from Raleigh to London or Munich in peak season. I don't think I've ever recently seen a RT $200 fare from a place like Raleigh to Europe, even in winter.

rex

<<if this fare is in the $100 ballpark ...>>

I think it is. And I understand the pressure you feel to "get it right" with a family of six - - as you say, gambling with fares for one or two people is much different than looking for a fare and fearing that waiting until April could cost you im multiples of $600.

There might be a blip of a sale sometime betweem April 1 and May 31 which could reduce this by $100, and then again you might miss it, or it might not offer six seats.

I think that the criteria should probably focus on scheduling/routing "perfection" (to meet your preferences), given that I would not be optimistic about finding much lower fares for July. Are you happy with the $945 choice before you now?

I'll throw out one additional possibility - - try Gur (yes, that's her name and I spelled it correctly) at http://www.the-joy-of-travel.com/infoHome.html

If she can't beat this fare (or find you something at the same price but scheduling/routing more to your liking), then ask her for advice on when to buy. I'll bet she says that you have a good price, and that you should buy it now.

Best wishes,

Rex

tcreath

Have you tried possibly flying out of a different city besides Munich? I don't know if it would make much difference for you, but we are flying to Germany in May and found a roundtrip flight into/out of Nuremberg for $300 cheaper than Munich, our first choice. For us, its worth it to drive the extra distance to save that much money. Of course, with a family of six you may not feel that way, but I just wanted to throw that option out there. Sometimes it pays to look at other airports.

Good luck!
Tracy

ira

Hi Nancy,

The best I have found is $889, but you have to stop in London and NYC on the way home.

http://www.onetravel.com

Your fare looks pretty good.

suze

As others have mentioned already, I don't think it's the "open jaw" arrangement but rather flying into a non-major airport and traveling at peak summer season that may be getting you higher fares.

Nancy45

Thanks everyone for their replies. As I am a conservative when it comes to flying with a family of 6 with definite dates and after reading your posts in which it is unlikely I'll find great fares from Raleigh in peak season, I purchased our tickets!! Now I can get on with planning the rest of our trip of a lifetime!! Thanks again for giving my peace of mind and breaking my purchasing paralysis!