I’m also willing to do an open jaw. I’m getting pretty desperate

I’d prefer to fly into and out of popular travel cities in western Europe.

Thanks in advance!

www.itasoftware.com — mentioned in our new user thread, top of this forum.

You’ve done well to find $650 in August. Does that include all taxes and fees? I tried ITA, searching WAS (which searches IAD, DCA, and BWI) to LON (which searches LCY, LHR, STN, LGW, and LTN) and all other UK and Ireland gateways. Best it turned up is $670 to Dublin, returning from Shannon. Barcelona is coming up $761 total on Iberia.

So I took the cheapest cities it found (SNN;DUB;BCN; and your LON) and did a search from WAS, then from PHL;RIC;NYC to see if anything comes up significantly cheaper. It found $672 from JFK… not worth it considering you’ve got $650 from IAD.

You’ve done very well with that $650. I recommend you go ahead and book it.

unfortunately, i went to go find the $650 RT from IAD to LHR and it was gone

if anyone else sees any good deals for flights from the DC area to any major city in europe in the beginning of august til mid/end of august, please let me know!

So Dublin, Shannon, and Barcelona don’t interest you? Or, you’re hoping for something cheaper than $672?

hey do you guys know if it’s true that paris is worse for pick pocketing in august? me and my friend are around 18 – 19 yrs old and we’re going to backpack europe in august. Any idea of where we should start out in europe?

Hi again Don,

I think I’m going to keep looking just a bit more to see if I can beat those prices.  It will also cost me about 100 bucks to get to/from NYC so it might not be worth it if it’s $672 from JFK…  Please let me know if you see anything better than that though, especially better deals from DC or Philadelphia or even Richmond.

Re: the question about pickpocketers – I’m not sure if they’re more active certain months.  The best thing you can do is be careful of where you keep your stuff.  If you’re a woman, wear a purse that has a strap across the body and that zips up and has a flap on top.  the more steps you have to take to get to the inside of it, the better. keep your wallet/passport inside the zipped inside pocket of your purse. keep the purse in front of you when you’re walking (not swung around so it’s behind you) and keep one hand on it if on a crowded train or something.  I did all these things and never had any problems – I spent 3 months in Barcelona.  If you’re a guy, then keep your wallet in your front pocket.  I don’t know any other tips for guys, sorry

The Ireland and Barcelona prices are from WAS airports (Dulles, National, and/or BWI). Try ITA and you’ll see them.

I don’t see anything less than 761 for WAS-BCN.

Why are these prices so high? They seem even higher than some of the prices people are finding right now for June and July.  Am I looking too early?  It is only April, 4 months before I’d be travelling.

August is typically a very expensive month – maybe even the most expensive unless your departure date is approximately August 20 or later. 

I’ve found flights from NYC to Dublin pretty much year round for $305-350, through Aer Lingus one way.  Flights from Ireland/U.k. to the rest of europe are usually less than a hundred euro.

I’ve been playing with www.farecompare.com the past few days. Seems like a nifty tool to help track down cheapest fares.