My family will be heading to Europe very late December 2018 or very early January 2019. Likely flying into Milan. When would be the best (cheapest) time to book flights? As soon as they're released in presumably January 2018? Or wait until the first available sale? Is there a general rule of thumb? If it makes any difference we would prefer to fly out of Venice. Would prefer to fly Qantas or Emirates I guess. Also would be looking at an internal flight from Milan to Munich - any best time to book that? Thanks in advance.
If you are after particular dates and airlines book as soon as the flights become available. Late Dec/Early Jan you are very unlikely to get any sale prices so best to jump in and get the lowest initial ticket price IMHO.
I'm in early planing for a Europe trip around this time as well. Very little experience with flight bookings/prices. I presume diferrent enter and exit destinations are more expense then in /out of same city?
Not necessarily. That used to be the case with limited Euro options for carriers from Australia where you needed an additional Euro flight, but is no longer an issue with the Gulf based carriers with numerous direct Euro destinations. For example with Emirates you can fly direct from Dubai to Vienna, Munich, Milan, Lyon, Geneve, Zürich etc and I doubt there would be too much difference in cost. https://www.emirates.com/english/destinations/
Flights to Edmonton have fluctuated from $974 to $1854 over the past two weeks. It's a lottery without rhyme or reason. Paid $1290
HI Duck, what are your travel dates approx, and who did you book through and airline?? I am looking at similar for next year, 18/19
Just get Skyscanner, or it's equivalent, alerts. If you google the question, the answer is around 7minths prior to travel. However there are so many online ticket sellers, the competition is considerable and sometimes you can get amazing deals even closer to departure. If you want to fly in and out of different airports, when using Skyscanner just tick the multi city option. I flew into Venice last year and out if Milan, I recall the difference was around $100. I flew on a code share Emirates/Qantas.
I have obtained some very low cost flights at the last minute, though I traditionally travel in early March which appears to be quieter. Thai airways also have some very good deals (including free stopovers in Bangkok sometimes). They fly direct to Munich. Their fleet were getting very tired but have improved in recent times. When travelling from Venice to Munich, do consider train travel as it is a beautiful part of the world to travel through. Try Rome2io (train $55-$150, Fly $78-$383) which is my Go-To website when moving around Europe. It is incredibly accurate and helpful.
Just had a look at some Skyscanner results. Its interesting to see that their "best flight" for a given flight and date is $700 more than their cheapest, with both flights being direct and no stop overs, on what would both be considered full service carriers.
@Beerman I am going on Sat 14th October (next Sat) for 10 days. It is not a ski trip. My advice for this time is to set up alerts a few months out and be patient. The price fluctuates by $800 with a mid point around $1300 with AC. I bought the ticket 10 days ago and two days after I bought it I received an alert for the same seat $300 cheaper. Its a shit seat arrangement on AC but the quickest route to Edmonton by a mile. Prices appear to start to ramp up again mod November. Good luck
Thanks @dawooduck , we aren't going until Dec next year, so i have plenty of time to scan and plan, but as you've said, from mid Nov prices go go north. P.s. In my experience cookies from web sites cost money, ours.
No not at all. we flew into Zurich and out of London. so classic 'open-jaw' ticket. It was cheaper than SYD/:HR/SYD and cheaper than SYD/ZUR/SYD I played with every possible combination. i didn't care about entry and exit airport and woudl have planned my trip accordingly around the cheapest one (and did)
Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason with fares and the weird cases are where it is more expensive to go to a stopover than via the stopover to a final destination. In August last year I looked for fares to Vancouver for the mid September a few weeks later and as an option also looked at Seattle. The latter would have been about $1300 return economy via Vancouver (on Air Canada into YVR and onto SEA) whereas to Vancouver return was about $2000 (on Air Canada).
Just announced Qatar Europe 2018 Sale. Eg from $1175 ex SYD-Milan. Book by 1 November. Travel from 13 January. https://www.qatarairways.com/en-au/offers/europe-2018-sale.html?cid=EMAU975010
This. MEL-ZRH return $1117 Qatar 1-16th Feb . Because I haven't decided where to ski, I looked up MEL-YVR same dates. Same price! (to the dollar would you believe) Cheaper than non-stop to Japan for the same dates!
I was watching prices for GVA, Tokyo and YVR from the middle of july till about 2 weeks ago, travelling the first half of januare. Avoiding the super cheap flights through China and where possible avoiding passing through the US because it's just too much bloody stress and paperwork for a friggin' transit. I was looking at Qantas/Jetstar, Emirates, Air Canada and Air NZ (YVR via AKL is a good option). I didn't look at Qatar because it's a really long layover (or was last time I looked) on the way home to Sydney. Tokyo was cheapest, but I wanted a direct overnight flight - the alternatives being either long middle-of-the-night transits or two wasted days sitting on a plane and a couple of overnight hotels in Tokyo. That meant that Tokyo wasn't that much cheaper than Geneva. Vancouver was somewhat more expensive again, vastly more if you wanted to avoid a transit through the US. Prices for Geneva held pretty constantly from July till sometime in September. They moved up about $350 between early september and early october, then another $150 by early november. Vancouver prices started to rise in August but fell a little early in November. Tokyo started to rise in August and then fell quite a bit from late september. I read somewhere that 13 weeks ahead is the best time. That worked for Geneva but not the others.
