[Idyllchat] Plane Fares-Los Angeles to Zurich

[Russ Crum]

One thing to watch out for if you call the airline is that some of  
them are tacking on a fee if they handle the sale that instead of  
buying on line. As pointed out, you are going in high season, so  
really good deals are going to be difficult unless some major  
calamity happens that scares everyone off. You should also try  
combinations on both ends of other cities to fly from and into. On  
occasion, you can come up with a winning combination. Just watch out  
for potential added ground transportation costs. There are also intra- 
Europe flights that can be very attractive. With some of these watch  
carefully as to what airport they use since it frequently is not the  
"major" airport for that city.

Another strategy you can try is to watch the fares every day. A year  
ago there was a large drop by Northwest in a fare we were looking for  
to Italy. The fare only existed on the NWA web site for one or two  
days. Unfortunately, we had purchased our tickets ONE day before  
through Travelocity! The fare drop did not surface on any of the big  
sites like Travelocity, Expedia, etc. We have found you have to  
constantly check all possibilities; third party as well as the  
airline itself.

Our experience with some of the supposed cheap fare resellers has not  
been good. e.g. they show a really good fare but when we followed  
through to actually make the purchase, the fare/flight combination  
was not available. A few years ago when Consumer Reports had a  
separate travel newsletter they did a major article on the reseller  
sites. One of their significant complaints was that sort of thing.

Good luck!

Russ Crum
rrcrum at sbcglobal.net

On Feb 26, 2007, at 9:39, Jay Cloidt wrote:

> Unfortunately, July-August is the high season for going from the US  
> to Europe with the most expensive airline tickets. Mid-week tickets  
> are cheaper than weekend tickets. If the airlines sales are low,  
> they may start a fare war which would drive the prices down, but  
> that wouldn't happen until May and it might not happen at all. For  
> a big trip like an Untour, I've never been comfortable trying to  
> hit that window. The cheapest seats on summer flights are usually  
> bought up around now. If you wait much longer, you are find the  
> airfare you found going up.
>
> One of the things you can try is, once you find you cheapest  
> flight, call the airline directly and see if they can do a little  
> better. Sometimes, calling the airline directly can get you a fare  
> without the hidden fees added on by an intermediary.
>
> A website I like to use is www.kayak.com. It searches about 600  
> travel websites for the cheapest airfare for your itinerary. When  
> you choose what it finds, it redirects you to the website where it  
> found the airfare.
>
> On 2/26/07, Phil Bickal <philbic at verizon.net> wrote:
> hi there untours,  I'm planning to purchase our own plane fares  
> from Los Angeles to Zurich for our untour to Switzerland in July  
> 2007. Do any of you know when and how to catch a low point in air  
> fares. the lowest I've seen so far is $1275 per person with tax,  
> which is a bit much for the 3 of us.   Thanks, Phil
>
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