When should I book my plane ticket to Europe

[harrysmith500]

July 22nd I plan on flying to Germany with my wife to see my old high school buddy.

I've been looking on sites like orbitz.com and the cheapest I can find is about 1800$ total.

What are your suggestions for finding the cheapest air fair. Such as how far out do you book, what website, ect....

Any other suggestions or input is appreciated.

I'll be flying from Portland, but returning to Salt Lake City.

I've made sure I'll be flying in and out on weekdays.

 

[jzanc532]

Check the site http://www.kayak.com/ they will search all those like priceline, orbitz etc I've had pretty good luck with that before. Also calling individual airlines and asking if they can give you a deal works sometime, usually with large groups but its worth a try. I would think that booking your tickets asap would probably be best since gas is supposed to go up like mad this summer.

 

[harrysmith500]

GreAt thank you !!

 

[harrysmith500]

TTT, any other suggestions

 

[MORSNO]

Harry, I had great luck booking standby tickets on Lufthansa/Condor flying between Denver Co and Frankfurt in the past. In the 80's it was $170 each way! Its route was Frankfurt GE to Denver CO to Minneapolis MN to Frankfurt GE. There were always seats available, I did it four years in a row.

I'll never use discount sites like Orbitz again. If you have any issues the airlines cannot work with you, you have to go through Orbitz for changes. If you have a delayed flight and need to book a different connection flight ASAP, you are SOL.

 

[Murph]

I fly to Europe 10-15 times a year. Its my company so I try and save as much as I can.

Try booking a one way from Portland to SLC and a RT from SLC to Germany. Should reduce the cost versus the different departure and return city.

Also look for a cheap RT into a European gateway city and then use a discount European airline to get from your gateway city to Germany like Berlin Air, Niki, etc. Often there are deals to London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Geneva, etc.

 

[harrysmith500]

What do you think of signing up for a Southwest credit card and getting 2 free flights with that, then just booking flights outta JFK to Frankfurt?

With the southwest deal, you sign up for their credit card, and that gives you a free round trip flight, then the first time you buy something with it you get another free round trip to anywhere they fly. It' s a pretty great deal from Southwest!

 

[Murph]

That sounds like a good tactic. Anytime you fly RT hub to hub the better off you are.
Play with all the options, the airlines typically won't volunteer the the cheapest way to do something. Kayak.com is a great tool for searching flights and getting an idea of cost.
ALWAYS book directly with the carrier-- not expedia, travelocity, orbitz, etc.

Murph

 

[Pedersen]

For my trip to US/Canada in January I used a norwegian site called finn.no, very similar to sites like kayak.com.
Booked a roundtrip ticket from Evenes in Norway to Bozeman in Montana.
Cheapest days was thursday out of Europe and monday/tuesday back.
payed about 1400$ for the whole roundtrip (Evenes- Oslo- Frankfurt- Denver- Bozeman and back) When I was in the US I changed my ticket to go back home from Calgary, that costed me 163$ extra, the route home was Calgary- Chicago- New York- Oslo- Evenes. so it was quite the change.