Hi. We are planning to take our whole family Italy (Tuscany/Rome/Florence) this summer. When is the best time to book the tickets. Also, it is less expensive to fly else where in Europe and connect from there. Any recommendations on sites to check for fares. Thank you.

Hi Amy<BR>You haven't given enough information. We don't know which month you are going, your destination airport, or your departure airport.<BR><BR>http://airtravelcenter.com/indexb.html might be helpful to you.

I agree that your origination airport is essential to answering the question in full.<BR><BR>But a partial answer is possible.<BR><BR>It's hard to ever find a bargain for July or August travel from North America. You'll need to scour hard and long starting in January - - the best price could come in February or March or May or who knows when.<BR><BR>June is a little different. If you can afford to wait until late to plan your whole trip you might find good prices in April or even May. Or perhaps just as good in the first few months of the year.<BR><BR>And yes it CAN be more affordable to fly to London (or other gateway cities - - used to be very true about Brussels - - not so much anymore), and then fly on to Italy. On Ryanair.com among others.<BR><BR>It makes the most sense if you would actually like to spend a few days in England (London area, specifically). I recommend London for two days on the origination leg, and Windosr for two days for the return travel - - if you have the time to arrange it this way.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

Amazing! Instant indexing!<BR><BR>This thread is indexed just minutes after I posted to it!<BR>

toppers<BR>

Hi. Sorry. Here is more info. We are departing out of Houston and want to go mid to late June or the first week of July. Are spending most of our time in Tuscany, so we have several options for destination airports. There are two adults and three children. Thanks.

Actually, I like the London idea. I would hate to wait until May to book. Fares are close to $1000 if booking today. Is there a chance they would come down if I wait until next year?

Amy, <BR>My experience last summer was traveling from Newark, NJ to Madrid but it can be illustrative of why it might not be a good idea to book now. I started tracking the rates at the end of Dec./ beginning of January and the rates never came down below $900/$1,000 for travel on June 20. Finally in early March the rates jumped to $1,200 and I panicked. The next day, the rates were down to $700!!!! At that point I booked the flights . The $700 rate held for a couple of days and then disappeared. The rates never came back down to that level. A month later the rates were back to the $900-1,000 level and it was downhill ( or uphill) from there!<BR>This was on Continental web-site . I've been told by people that travel a lot that USUALLY the better deals to Europe are around 90 days before departure. It might have been a coincidence, but in my case it happened.

Maria, how did you keep watch on the fares. Did you check daily? What's the best way to monitor the fares. I use travelocity's fare watcher, but the fares are low now for travel within the next month, so it doesn't help. Any ideas. Also, are there any cheaper european cities to fly into.

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amy,<BR>There are 4 of us going to italy june 12th to june 26th. flying in to rome out of venice. we are useing air france out of chicago 1 hour lay over in paris. We bought our tickets on the internet at trip.com for 516 plus tax came to 590.45 per person. You have to keep watching , an our after we bought them it went back to 1000.<BR>Diane

topper

Hi Amy! I logged onto "Priceline.com" and named my price for round trip tickets for my husband and I in May,2002 for our trip that we just got back from. They flew us on Swiss to Zurich and then transferred us to their other flight to Rome. Round trip was very good. Highly recommend it, if they assign you to swiss. Good luck, Laura

Diane, wow, what a great fare. It sounds like my only option is to check fares regularly and hope. Thanks.