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2010 Fall travel
Sun, 04/25/2010 - 09:26
New Member
I’ve been watching fares for the last 4 months for a 21 day trip to Paris-Venice-CTerre-Florence-Rome. My daughter and I plan to fly open jaw with the intent to see the some terrific art. Our dates are very flexible. The fares, as you’d expect, have been slowly decreasing from around the mid $1200’s to the current low $800’s. Is this a good time to buy or should I wait a bit longer? (Btw, the lowest fare I found was offered on Orbitz and Cheaptickets flying US Airways at $810 from 9-21 to 10-12.)
Thanks in advance for your help!
kllybdn
Sept/Oct is “shoulder season” so airfares normally drop from their peak season (Jun-Aug) highs.
How flexible are you with cities and dates? Would you consider going in low season (Nov-March, except around Christmas)? Low season would be cheapest.
We usually travel in low season but this year I have some obligations I can’t get away from. My time frame is from mid September to mid November.
The cities could be juggled or reversed (Rome to Paris vs. Paris to Rome) but I haven’t found that saves any money. Any advice?
One thing I forgot to mention in my original post is the $800+ fair I found flies into Madrid, not Paris. In my researching, and I could easily be wrong, I’ve found Madrid can often be cheaper than Dublin in getting your foot into Europe. And I don’t imagine it’ll be too difficult to find something inexpensive flight-wise that’ll get us to where we really wanna be.
I appreciate your wisdom Don. I will wait a bit before I commit myself. I don’t mind telling you there is comfort sitting back and watching things unfold. The trick seems to be when to know to “jump.”
kllybdn
If you’re flexible enough to depart from Nov 1 or later, and flexible enough to take another city outside of your itinerary in order to score a better overall airfare, then I would sign up for sale alerts and wait for something better than $810, and cross your fingers that fuel prices do not skyrocket.
810 really isn’t bad for your itinerary—it’s pretty good, actually—considering SGF is a small interior airport, and considering that you’re going to Italy in shoulder season. The gamble to book this is that it might go cheaper, but fuel prices and/or capacity cuts could as well drive it higher.
Yes, Madrid has been cheaper recently, but that will probably change in another season.
I wouldn’t delay your trip until november to save a 100$. Weathern in southern europe is much better in september than november…..