Big Europe Airfare Sale for Sept 2016?

[audreyh1]

I've signed up for the "points guy" info, I'm curious where to find information about these quick fare wars type sales. Anyone want to share their favorite source.

The points guy is the only one who mentioned it. The best source for me was the United website special offers/deals.

 

[audreyh1]

It was a fare war. Delta went after United and Star Alliance markets, especially in Germany, with business class fares around $1600-1700 through next March.

Unfortunately, I have a big trip booked in July (and just returned from a trip to Norway) so I can't take advantage. Plus I have no interest in booking with Delta or Sky Team.

But United retaliated by offering $2200 business class fares to airports in France. So I booked one for the end of March to Paris. I'll actually be going to Mallorca and then spending the last couple of nights in Paris before flying back.

I was very tempted to buy another one early next year but that means going to places in cold weather. Probably will be targeting another trip later in the summer or fall of next year instead.

Now apparently AA is going after UA/Star Alliance markets in Germany with cheap economy fares. Again, I don't have too many miles on AA so it won't do me much good.

Unfortunately we weren't flying to or from France, even though we are spending 2.5 weeks in France, so I never saw business class better than $4400 per person.

 

[explanade]

Well I wasn't looking into vacationing in France either.

In this case I used CDG as a hub for the long-haul flight at a discount.

Then bought a separate flight to where I really wanted to go.

Only thing is that I'd have to spend a night or two in Paris to make the return flight work, schedule-wise. So there's added expense there but you can always find reasons to spend time in Paris.

Oh and the outbound flight, I chose one that would arrive in CDG early in the morning, so I can connect to a separate flight. The risk in doing that is that I have just over 2-hours connection time in Paris. I could get into trouble if the flight into Paris is delayed. The other thing is I'm connecting through EWR so that means the transatlantic flight is only 7 hours, not much time to sleep on that flight with the lie-flat seats. But that flight is scheduled to arrive before 8AM so it allows me to connect to a flight to somewhere warmer in early April.

 

[audreyh1]

So for all those tourists who decided to stay away from Europe this summer and head to Orlando instead........

 

[ivinsfan]

So for all those tourists who decided to stay away from Europe this summer and head to Orlando instead........

Well between Zika and this news I'm guessing some foreign governments will be issuing travel advisories for Florida..They say it just a matter of time before Zika hits Florida.

 

[audreyh1]

Well between Zika and this news I'm guessing some foreign governments will be issuing travel advisories for Florida..They say it just a matter of time before Zika hits Florida.

Probably.

I think there was already an announcement for Texas for locally acquired Chikungunya virus. Chikungunya: Texas Confirms Mosquito Borne Disease Case

 

[NW-Bound]

Well, spurred by this thread I surfed the Web to look for ticket prices to Rome, and saw prices in the mid 700s for late Sep, early Oct. I reported on this earlier.

I did not book right away, and looked for other travel info to flesh out the tentative trip.

The deals are now gone! Tickets are now $300 higher, and flight times are not at good hours, or have bad layovers. Oh well, you snooze, you lose.

 

[audreyh1]

Well, spurred by this thread I surfed the Web to look for ticket prices to Rome, and saw prices in the mid 700s for late Sep, early Oct. I reported on this earlier.

I did not book right away, and looked for other travel info to flesh out the tentative trip.

The deals are now gone! Tickets are now $300 higher, and flight times are not at good hours, or have bad layovers. Oh well, you snooze, you lose.

There was a June 7 deadline. Sorry if you missed that detail at the bottom of my OP which I updated as soon as I figured out why my tickets were so cheap. I updated it about 10 mins after the original posting, and added the link to United.

Our flights are now quoted $600 higher already.

This seems to be a fare war. If it is, there is a chance it happens again if these competing airlines decide they need to steal more customers from each other.

 

[audreyh1]

Hmmmm - after doubling for about three weeks, the prices for our Fall trip to have dropped back to what we paid on June 6 according to Google Flights tracking. So some kind of Europe air fare sale is back!

NW-Bound you may have another chance!!!

More info - United says this is a 3 day sales good until July 29: https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/content/deals/offers/Pages/EuropeSale.aspx

 

[ivinsfan]

Just a bump on this thread..prices from some European gateways are dropping like rocks. I noticed Delta is running some non-stops to Europe for Fall dates in the 750 dollar RT range.

I was tracking a non-stop MSP- Heathrow flight in November for a large family celebration..first of the year 1500plus, the sale in June around 1000, right now 750 bucks if anybody wants a last minute off season trip to Europe now might be the time to look. I bought a single ticket in June to plan a bunch of family travel and I thought that was a good price. You win some, you lose some, there was so much planning involved with this trip I needed that plane ticket in June.