Booking international travel, book now or wait for 11 months out?

[hollypoast]

My family is planning a trip to Norway, France (Disneyland Paris!!!) and Iceland next summer. In researching our trip I have found two airlines that are already offering flights for our tentative timeframe-- SAS and Iceland Air. It seems all others are only booking out 11 months which is what i'm use to.

Question- should I go ahead and book now? Iceland Air's prices seem reasonable but I wonder if they will drop once all airlines release the same dates.

I've priced out this itinerary at $1,200 per person:
Chicago to Bergen, Norway
Paris to Iceland
Iceland to Chicago

We will travel by train or other local airlines to make our way around (Norway to Paris/Southern France, etc.) and that is not included in the price above but seems fairly cheap.

Thoughts? Past experiences?

 

[cedricandsophie]

Personally I think it's a little early. For our norway cruise thst started in Copenhagen I booked 8 months out and got 1100 nonstop on SAS from Chicago. Iceland air is very reasonable at almost any time. You might want to put an alert in your fav airlines or online travel site so they notify you when prices start moving.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

It's hard to say if the price will drop, but the current price is about average for a US-Europe flight. It's possible it will never get lower.

You might want to play around with multi-city bookings once flights are released for other airlines. You could save some money doing this, rather than making separate bookings within Europe. You'll be surprised how fast these separate travel charges will add up. Also, if you're traveling by train, the farther out you buy your tickets, the cheaper they will be.

 

[BadPinkTink]

I usually book my flights to LA from Europe about 6 months out, I travel in June and book latest end of January. I start doing price comparisons in December using http://www.skyscanner.com.

For international travel, the more layovers / stops the lower the price. Also multi city itineraries are more expensive than end to end itineraries ie
Chicago to Bergen, Norway
Paris to Iceland
Iceland to Chicago
will be more expensive than Chicago to Norway return.

Also keep in mind the time of year you are travelling, summer June, July, August are peak times and many airlines are more expensive during those times.