My husband and I decided at the last minute (well, last minute for us, anyway) to go to London for a few days (yipee!) (we'll freeze!). We'd be leaving LAX on New Year's Eve and returning a week later. I've heard good things about Virgin Atlantic, and their airfares now are $967.00. But I always seem to see sale prices later in the year for winter travel. Anyone had experience with that, or should I just book it and get it over with?

Thanks!

I annually go to Europe - into Amsterdam and out of Paris or London around Christmas and early January - I never buy my tickets until late November or so as seats after Christmas Eve at least will always be available at current prices but probably some sale - esp for travel on New Years Eve I would think.

But this year due to the leaping fuel prices (Libyan oil was perfect jet fuel I guess) prices may be higher than I expect - I in years past have paid $500-600 taxes included but again this year may be much higher.

any fare I see on Orbis, etc then I go right to the airline's own web site and fare is usually same or cheaper and I prefer not to deal with a middleman unless I can save a lot of dough.

Are you committed to Virgin Atlantic? I see flights on kayak.com on US Air, Continental, and United for those dates for $823-$898. (kayak.com takes you to the airlines own website for booking, or you can use a third party site like Expedia). Bing.com's price predictor advises to buy now and says there is a 63% chance prices will rise or remain steady.

If I were in your shoes, I would buy in the next couple of weeks. It's a bit of crapshoot, though.

It isn't that long ago, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, that I was able to book JFK-LHR on asny of the airlines for around $350 to $500 return all inclusive. These seats usually became available during winter sails in the period between New Year's Day and the week before President's Day, a very low season to Europe (especially in London where it doesn't get light till 8 AM and by 1615, it is pitch black as if it is the middle of the night; hard to fight the earth's rotation)....since then, the UK government especiallyh but the US government is not toally innocent, have imposed almost draconian taxes on flights out of and into the UK and in the best of times, that is periods of cheap fares, it's hard to get out less than $800 return (what they do is put the hotels on sale to try to entice you across the pond). You might be able to do a few bucks better but I don't think anything earthshaking.

Thanks, all. Walkabout, I checked Kayak, and the less expensive fares were for connecting flights. I'm thinking direct is a better idea in case there's a blizzard (or volcanic eruption - that happened to us a few years ago).

Guess I'll go ahead and book sooner rather than later. Appreciate it!

Heathrow's taxes are usually about $150+ USD per ticket-Gatwick's are about $40-50 less.

"<i>I'm thinking direct is a better idea . . .</i>"

What you probably mean is a <u>non-stop</u> flight. A 'direct' flight can have stops.

So, I ended up buying a non-stop flight on VA for $925.00, which I think is a pretty good price.

In case anyone else is looking to buy, this morning I saw on TravelZoo that British Airways has a sale on flights until October 21 - available through TravelZoo. Same dates and times I'm going, BA is $903.00. I'm still happy with my VA flight, but if anyone else is interested, move fast!

Thanks again for all the advice.