Will Bush SotU address tonight impact transatlantic airfares?
 

This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that a lot of people may be sitting on the sidelines with regards to booking overseas travel this week, and perhaps the past several weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if bookings are down to a trickle in the last seven days or so. <BR><BR>Some airlines have sale fares that expire this week. Do you think they will go lower? Do you think they will extend dates of sale fares? Will it include May?<BR><BR>I realize that no one could do anything other than guessing. But I would like to hear the range of opinions on this.<BR>

I just got an email message from Expedia Fare Tracker, and fares from Boston to Paris have taken a nose dive. The latest price is $202 plus tax, and departures are good through the end of March. I checked a series of dates, and there is plenty of availability. This is about the 6th time that I've seen this fare drop in the past 2 weeks.

I don't know what airlines have what sale deadlines this week, but just noticed that LTU has sales for spring, summer and fall that expire today. No indication of extnesions, but I wonder what they will show tomorrow.<BR><BR>Challenging times, for planning.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

In general, I don't know if much happened this week towards getting buyers off the sidelines and making those &quot;phones ring&quot; (more figurative than literal with internet bookings nowadays). <BR><BR>If anything, the depressing effect of the Columbia disaster probably kept travelers from booking. Ironically, this WAS the weekend that I was able to commit to the trip for our family, due to an unrelated coincidence (the gracious gift of NWA certificates from two fellow Fodorites!)<BR><BR>But in follow-up to my original postings, LTU did extend their sale deadline to Feb 3, and Aer Lingus to Feb 11 (it had been scheduled to end Jan 28). Doesn't seem like any great avalnche of bargain fares has been announced - - little or nothing mentioned on the Cheap Flights forum of eurotrip.com this week either.<BR><BR>Are the Apr-May (ultra) bargains still gonna fall from the sky?<BR>

Right now I can fly cheaper from Northeastern US to Germany ($240) or France ($289) than to down south. I admit to be one of those who is taking a wait and see attitude.... specially after hearing first hand accounts of very strong hostile behavior towards Americans in France.