Getting deals on international flights

[Bill Bumface]

I'm going to Switzerland in August/September, and I was just frustrated to find all the good deals on flights I had found just went up a bunch.

I've been using yahoo farechase, kayak, and a bunch of the usuals to look around. I was just curious, will these keep going up until last minute? Is it better to book far in advance, or if I wait a bit will things go down? Anyone have any good tips on good sites for me to check out?

[SpitFire40]

I have plans to go to Germany, so i'm also curious about this

[Kybosh]

I just booked a flight to Slovenia and found a sweet deal on travelcuts for $1000 return. I waited to book until the following day and it had gone up a hundred bucks. After I booked the following day it went up $300. My advice is that if you see something that looks good, book it because it won't last.

When I was searching I mostly used all the standard websites like Travelcuts, expedia, travelocity. There are also some more discount sites like flyzoom.com but the departures didn't match my trip window. One thing to remember is that if you can catch a cheap flight to London, there are any number of discount flights from there. I would look into stuff like skyeurope.com, easyjet.com and ryanair.com from London.

Good luck, I found the whole process to be very frustrating but once it's done you can just focus on your trip.

Edit: you can also use sites like www.farecompare.com to search for the cheapest flight from a variety of airlines.

[4X4]

I just came back from Italy and I have some advice: don't use Zoom. I will elaborate later.

[Sample00]

" After I booked the following day it went up $300. My advice is that if you see something that looks good, book it because it won't last."

very good advice!

Europe goes on sale in the spring, ie) april, may, june

[prarieboy]

We Travel to Romania and always book as early as possible. Expedia works for us. The longer we wait the more it goes up. Summer is really expensive.

[Draug]

My wife and I are planning on going to England this spring. We'll be there the last two weeks of March and the first week in April.

We havent booked our flights yet. Does anyone happen to know of an ongoing sale or a sale that is coming up?

The best we have found so far is about $800 return including taxes, per person. Should we keep looking for a better price?

Why should we avoid Zoom, as a poster above suggested?

[Kaon]

I'm going on that trip to Slovenia with Ky, and I can't remember how many online booking and agents both of us have checked over the last month or so, and the price never got better. Sample what period does that flight sale affect? Strictly the summer months, or something into the fall?

I know with us as Ky said our dates were quite limited in that we had a 2 day window going there and coming back and couldn't really take anything but those days. Also we're going at the start of May so waiting wasn't really an option given the inflexibility of our depart/return dates.

Also as Ky said you if you can get a good deal to London you can fly out most anywhere on a discount flight. This site gives a list of low cost carriers in Europe http://wikitravel.org/en/Discount_airlines_in_Europe. Make sure to take a look some local carriers for where you might land as every country seems to have a few of them and they may fly to where you plan to land from here.

[@theCBE]

Originally Posted by Draug

My wife and I are planning on going to England this spring. We'll be there the last two weeks of March and the first week in April.

We havent booked our flights yet. Does anyone happen to know of an ongoing sale or a sale that is coming up?

The best we have found so far is about $800 return including taxes, per person. Should we keep looking for a better price?

Why should we avoid Zoom, as a poster above suggested?

Assuming you are flight out of Calgary $800 return is a killer deal, I would book. As for Zoom I haven't flown personally but my brother has and he says its no worse than Air Transat.. which isn't saying much, because they suck balls.. but if they have the cheapest flight I would still fly with them.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Draug

My wife and I are planning on going to England this spring. We'll be there the last two weeks of March and the first week in April.

We havent booked our flights yet. Does anyone happen to know of an ongoing sale or a sale that is coming up?

The best we have found so far is about $800 return including taxes, per person. Should we keep looking for a better price?

Why should we avoid Zoom, as a poster above suggested?

I've seen 499 return to London at the UofC Travelcuts, however, I'm not sure of the dates or anything like that, so you should call and see what the limitations are (or if the deal is still up, it was a few weeks ago).

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

I've seen 499 return to London at the UofC Travelcuts, however, I'm not sure of the dates or anything like that, so you should call and see what the limitations are (or if the deal is still up, it was a few weeks ago).

Another thing to note is that 499 return is without taxes, so you're probably going to be looking at ~750-800. The cheapest flight I've seen to London recently is 750 return including taxes.

[chris lindberg]

I am also very interested in this topic as well, as I have plans to visit Germany sometime in the future as well.

[SaskaBushFire]

Seems to be quite the hot topic as I and a few friends plan to visit Europe this summer.

These return flights that are being mentioned, are they open ended? (I hope that is the right term) Or do they set a certain time limit that you have to use it by?

[Sample00]

support your local travel consultant, contrary to popular belief, cheaper isnt alway found online

[Kaon]

Originally Posted by SaskaBushFire

Seems to be quite the hot topic as I and a few friends plan to visit Europe this summer.

These return flights that are being mentioned, are they open ended? (I hope that is the right term) Or do they set a certain time limit that you have to use it by?

I guess that depends on what you mean by open ended. Are you looking for a ticket that allows you to walk into the airport whenever you want and fly you back? Like tour europe till you run out of cash and then hop a plane at that point? That's what I think an open ended ticket is, and if that's what you mean then the quoted prices are much lower then what you would end up getting I would guess.

Obviously with Expedia, which last I checked was about $862 return with taxes, you choose your departure/return date and that's the price and the dates. With things like Travelcuts (at least with us), there was a set period over which we could fly out and come back, as we could not return later then May 31 and still get the deal. I can't remember the departure date limit, but it was before we were planning to leave so it wasn't a big deal. Again though we choose the dates beforehand and then the deal either applies to it or not if we meet the date restrictions.

Obviously checking with Sample might turn up some gems as well. If only this post had come up a week ago we likely would have thought about it, lol. For now at least we're set and ended up with a fairly decent deal I thought.

[Sample00]

as much as I would like to get everyones business, I know thats not possible. But for the clients that do book with us, I go all out in giving 100% service and if a problem develops during your trip at least you know that you have someone you can call that will help try to help you out.
We have any online booking engine as well, I am not terribly pleased with it at the moment and we are looking at changing our software, until then it might be a good reference point for some and if you would like our firm to quote you, please dont hesitate to call or email us.

gets off my soapbox now.

[icarus]

Guys you should all talk to Sample. He got me a deal on an international flight only a few days before take-off that was far better than anything available on the internet.

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by icarus

Guys you should all talk to Sample. He got me a deal on an international flight only a few days before take-off that was far better than anything available on the internet.

slides ya a 20 for the compliment.
and thanks to all those that did contact me. I'll be in touch today.
Axel aka Sample00

[mykalberta]

Why are you looking now for flights, you will get no deals now - best bet for International flights is either 1-2 weeks before or 3-4 months before.

Best bet would be get a cheap flight to England than fly to Switzerland via RyanAir or EasyJet to some place in Germany and then train it.

MYK

[Tron_fdc]

I too will plug Sample....we had a glitch in our plans when we booked and the guy went 110% to make it work. Travelocity would have told us to f-off, so for the extra couple bucks (if you can afford it) having a good travel agent pays off.