what price did you pay for air to Barcelona?

[familyfun5]

Hi all you experts I need your advice.

We were unable to go to the Med last year. Now we are considering it for 2011.

The lowest price I can find out of Denver is 1399 pp for June 8 cruise. Just as a comparison what price has others paid? Any particular company you went with? If flights are cheaper out of another city I could fly there easily. Thoughts on the cheapest way to fly?

Thank you in advance for all who comment.

 

[Anal Annie]

We booked an August Med cruise for next summer on opening day LAST October. I have been fare watching this whole entire year. Until about July the fares from DC WERE running around $1,000ish (give or take about $50) but since then they've been WAAY up, to around $1,250ish.

NOTE - I am pricing a multi-city trip with a few days in Paris first then hopping to Barcelona the day before the cruise. There is nothing direct coming home from Barcelona so I am looking pretty much for direct options to Paris as I would like at least one way to be direct (non-stop). Air France has been consistently the lowest carrier for this itinerary. They are running about $100 pp cheaper out of Philly which would be about a 2.5-3 hr. drive for us. I might consider doing that 'cuz I am trying to cover at least 2 of our tix with credit card miles & I NEEEED the price to be around $1,150 pp in order to do that. I need to convince DH that a 3 hr drive in each direction is worth it to save an additional $1,200 out of pocket!!! Airfare is just WAAY up this year.

I have been watching primarily thru kayak.com but have made the rounds thru airfarewatchdog.com, farecompare.com, bing.com, yapta.com etc. I am considering contacting a travel agent just to see if they have any air consolidators that might offer something any cheaper. I even called Costco Travel to see if we used them to book our hotels if they could get us any better prices but not so far.

 

[kaseyC]

I've been watching flights to Barcelona for our May Med cruise. There are no direct non-stops from Chicago so I've been keeping my eye on a few flights on Lufthansa that have the connections and the times we wanted. Those flights are priced at around $1400 R/T.

My DH has a huge amount of United miles but they do not fly to Barcelona. I found out they are part of the Star Alliance which includes Lufthansa. I called United Mileage Plus last Monday and they had the flights I've been watching on Lufthansa available. So I booked 5 R/T tickets ORD-MUC-BCN and BCN-FRA-ORD using miles. It's a huge weight off my shoulders because I wasn't looking forward to paying for airfare that was almost as much as the cruise.

 

[lmhall2000]

We flew in May...$708 taxes & all..

 

[mousemom11]

We flew to Barcelona this past June/July. RT from Seattle for 4 was $4300. However, I got that price through Travelocity and will NEVER NEVER NEVER book through them again given the nightmare that happened with this airfare. It's a very long story, but the bottom line is that they do not train their call center people properly and they did not know how to book new flights for us when the airline changed one flight time and our connection time was no longer valid. Plus they kept lying to me saying that they had done it when they had not. It took a week to get the flights rebooked and that was only because Air Canada finally took pity on us and took the reservation back from Travelocity (even though they were not supposed to do that) and rebooked the flights for us. Lesson learned, book directly with the airline for overseas trips, even if it means you pay a higher price.

Family, the $1400 pp is probably about average for airfare to Barcelona in June. We flew a combination of Air Canada and Lufthansa and they were both marvelous!! Much better than the US airlines that friends of ours flew. On the Lufthansa flight from Vancouver to Frankfurt, there were FREE headseats, pillows and blankets on each seat when we boarded. They served us both a full hot dinner and breakfast the next morning before landing. Beer and wine were FREE. This was all in economy class. Each of us had a small screen on the back of the seat in front of us so we could watch movies and TV shows. Air Canada was even better flying from Frankfurt to Calgary because they had power plugs at the seats so you could plug in your electronics. Also, take a look at British Airways. I've heard that they are good for overseas flights as well.

 

[west&east]

I've been watching flights to Barcelona for our May Med cruise. There are no direct non-stops from Chicago so I've been keeping my eye on a few flights on Lufthansa that have the connections and the times we wanted. Those flights are priced at around $1400 R/T.

My DH has a huge amount of United miles but they do not fly to Barcelona. I found out they are part of the Star Alliance which includes Lufthansa. I called United Mileage Plus last Monday and they had the flights I've been watching on Lufthansa available. So I booked 5 R/T tickets ORD-MUC-BCN and BCN-FRA-ORD using miles. It's a huge weight off my shoulders because I wasn't looking forward to paying for airfare that was almost as much as the cruise.

Kasey, congrats on using miles. I also used US Air miles to fly Lufthansa to BCN from CLT through Munich. Booking through Star Alliance also costs fewer miles than booking through US Air or United with miles, so if anybody has miles on any of the Star Alliance carriers, be sure to consider the partner awards, it will be worth it.

 

[PBader]

We were on the WBTA in September. I was able to book one way tickets from Louisville to Paris (where we stayed for a few nights before traveling to Barcelona) for less than $600 each. This was about $50 less than I kept finding for flying into Barcelona. I used the http://economytravel.com/ They had much better prices than booking direct and I did not have any problems at all with them.

My recommendation to you is to set a target price and check everyday--when it is in your range BOOK IT. I had friends that paid more than twice what I did. Good luck

 

[pxlbarrel]

We're going on the Med cruise in June next year and we haven't booked anything yet. We're probably going to go through London and take a "cheap" flight to Barcelona from there. I couldn't find any direct flights from Barcelona (although, that could change at any time, I guess) so we're gonna make a mini holiday in London before Barcelona.

My other concern is finding a hotel in Barcelona that doesn't cost us an arm and a leg.

 

[wrennies]

Unless you really feel you have, do not buy now. Wait until about 3 months away or so....I bought our May 24 tickets in March and paid $800. That was alot better than the $1300 I had seen for months. I did a lot of watching on FareCompare and noticed that the trend was for prices to go down about three months before the date. I knew what flights I wanted and checked to make sure that were not full several times a week.

 

[jel0511]

Unless you really feel you have, do not buy now. Wait until about 3 months away or so....I bought our May 24 tickets in March and paid $800. That was alot better than the $1300 I had seen for months. I did a lot of watching on FareCompare and noticed that the trend was for prices to go down about three months before the date. I knew what flights I wanted and checked to make sure that were not full several times a week.

It really depends on when you plan on flying for that strategy to work. May isn't prime summer vacation time, so I'd expect airfare to Europe to go down the closer it got. Our cruise was in August and we booked our air in Oct 2009. We paid 1000 per ticket and it only went up from then until cruise time. About 3 months prior, I recall our air being almost double what I paid!!!!!

 

[castawaycayfans]

We flew from Charlotte in May to Barcelona for $856 each for our party of four. We flew to Frankfurt and then onto Barcelona. We started looking at airfares in January and booked the last week of the month. I checked it on a daily basis and we noticed that it was starting to creep up and grabbed the price. It only went up from there. We flew on US Airways to Frankfurt and Lufthansa to Barcelona. US Airways was okay, but Lufthansa was wonderful! If you can get a flight with them, do it, we would fly with them again. The staff was nice and my DH loved the fact that you could get coke, beer or wine for your in flight beverage at no cost. They gave the kids packets with coloring pages and games to play. Good Luck!

 

[Eeyore3838]

We flew over from Orlando in late August for $1140 pp r/t. It was the cheapest that I found it with only 1 stop. We flew Delta and connected through Atlanta. I would take that way again.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

We are going on the June 18th 11 day Med. cruise!! I booked a month ago using a combination of points and cash (not enough points for all of us in first class); we paid about $2,100.00 in total for the 3 of us (dh isn't coming). We will be traveling Toronto to Zurich via Air Canada and Zurich to Barcelona via Lufthansa. Returning we connect in Frankfurt. These seats weren't available, but because dh is a Super Elite traveler they opened them up for us. If we had to pay cash it would have cost around $9,000.00. I am a bit worried as I now want to add an extra day in Barcelona and really don't want to pay the change fee. Hoping I can talk them into not charging it

 

[kaseyC]

We are going on the June 18th 11 day Med. cruise!! I booked a month ago using a combination of points and cash (not enough points for all of us in first class); we paid about $2,100.00 in total for the 3 of us (dh isn't coming). We will be traveling Toronto to Zurich via Air Canada and Zurich to Barcelona via Lufthansa. Returning we connect in Frankfurt. These seats weren't available, but because dh is a Super Elite traveler they opened them up for us. If we had to pay cash it would have cost around $9,000.00. I am a bit worried as I now want to add an extra day in Barcelona and really don't want to pay the change fee. Hoping I can talk them into not charging it

Check with your miles program because some allow free changes for their more elite members. I know DH can make changes for free on awards tickets because of his status in the United Mileage Plus program.

 

[momtoejanda]

i have been looking for airfare too and fortunately we live on the east coast so I check Washington DC, Philly and NYC. NYC is much cheaper about $600 vs $1200-1500. Maybe you can check into just a flight to NY and then go from there????

 

[abdmom]

I paid about $850 pp for Toronto to Barcelona last May. That included 2 child fares. We flew Air France via Paris. I found the cheapest fares around the week of New Year's. Good luck! We are planning another Med cruise in 2011 out of Rome, so far, I'm finding airfares in the $1400 range. Yikes!

 

[TPBChick]

In August, I paid $1,155 for nonstop roundtrip between Philly & Barcelona on US Airways for 6/29/11 cruise.

 

[Zoom]

i have been looking for airfare too and fortunately we live on the east coast so I check Washington DC, Philly and NYC. NYC is much cheaper about $600 vs $1200-1500. Maybe you can check into just a flight to NY and then go from there????

i just checked Swiss Air out of JFK, only $2,020 for 2AD 1CH can this be true? not familiar with SA..... so i'm not sure if i will take the bait and book it.

 

[thinkoflaura]

we are flying British airways from Los Angeles, and tickets were about $1300 each.

our Med cruise is primetime SUMMER -- june 29, 2011, so i doubt it will go down any amount that will be worth the stress of waiting/gambling.

good luck!

 

[luke]

Around $200 return for two of us

Certainly a nicer pill to swallow than the $3000 we had to pay to get to WDW in August

Like someone else said, it's the hotel I'm now having trouble finding a good hotel for the right price with...