If your dates are not flexible, then you should lock in (purchase) now. I don’t have a crystal ball, but with rising fuel costs, I can’t see it dropping. I wouldn’t risk it going up as much or more just on the hopes of saving $58 on a transatlantic round trip if I had to be there and back on non-flexible dates.

Just to elaborate. This fare does not include any fuel surcharges. It is quite likely that Delta will follow everybody else and start slapping $50 – $250 (!) fuel fee on top of its fares, thus eating up any potential savings. To me the total of $533 looks good enough for April to lock it in.

will do, thanks guys!

Seva, I wonder if Lingus are including fuel in their fares because in recent winters, $200rt+tax to UK and Ireland was pretty common (when oil was less than $40 a barrel), and airport taxes and fees should add about $80 to US/Ireland roundtrips. So that means the extra could be their fuel charge.

On a related note… Lufthansa either hedged fuel brilliantly, or is just dumping seats, because with so many under-$400 roundtrips, there’s not much room for fuel surcharge on their current offers.

Don, I have no idea how Lufthansa does it! Just out of curiosity I’ve looked at the anatomy of one of those sub $400 fares, and saw $100 base each way and $80 fuel surcharge. Even without a crystal ball I’d expect $100 transatlantic fares to be gone soon, but fuel charges to stay.

To me all those fuel surcharges sound a lot like that BS. Frankly, since ticket prices are not regulated, I don’t care exactly how the costs of doing business are priced into the fares. Following this logic we’ll soon have to pay “pilot salary surcharge” and “flush toilet maintenance surcharge.” (Lufthansa, by the way, already charges $50 booking fee for tickets sold on its website.) Nevertheless the airlines seem to often think “if other guys can charge $$ for ****, so should we.”