You’ve done well to find that $649 fare. Priceline shows this flight for $639 total (they reveal prices up-front first, now, but I think they still do bidding too), so if interested in this flight, be sure to check the price direct from Iberia.com too.

Farecompare shows alerts on this route at $572 and $580 total round trip last year late Nov/early Dec, which would likely cover pre-Christmas departure prices. With fuel surcharges now increased (and increasing?), $649 seems pretty good—maybe the best you could expect?

Also try Lufthansa’s student site if not already— www.generationfly.co… — and their site www.weflyhome.com

I second that. It is difficult to expect prices to go any lower, moreover to see a decent price that well in advance is in itself rather unusual.

Contrary to what one may think, student travel companies rarely beat orbitz and the likes on round-trip prices. STA, studentuniverse, and travelcuts are not set up to scoop up sales fares from every airline. Student fares often have less restrictive rules such as one-way at the cost of half round-trip, longer max stay limit, and reasonable date change fees. It still makes sense to check them out. However in my experience their best winter fares never become available until august or even later.

Thanks for your advice! It helped me figure out when to use the student travel sites, that’s for sure.

I probably won’t be booking the tickets yet, as my traveling companion and I are still iffy on whether we’re going in December (we may postpone to Spring Break), so I will stay alerted to the fluxations in fares. Traveling around the country, I tend to do things on a whim (booking tickets with very little notice, staying longer than anticipated, etc. etc.) but it scares me to do that with international travel. I had it in my mind that although domestic flights fluctuate rapidly with deals, it is almost certainly better to book transatlantic flights early, as the deals are few & unreliable. Considering the price I have now, would it be prudent to start to plan purchasing these tickets within the next few weeks to secure this deal, or to wait out the summer months to see if any specials come up? Having absolutely never planned a trip abroad, this is just me asking for any general knowledge.

Also, any stories of Italy that will help us decide on Christmas vs. Spring would be appreciated, also. I’m Catholic and would love to see the Vatican that close to Christmas, and we’re both from cold climates (Massachusetts and WVa, with both of us going to school now in Chicago), so we can bear anything over freezing, but would the temperature be too cool to spend the majority of the day outside? Outside of Rome, does Italy get very crowded during December? We both speak Italian, so engaging ourselves in the culture, outside of tourist crowds, would be nice.

Sorry if the end of this post is outside the discussion topic of flights! I can repost if necessary =)