What's A Good Ticket Price on NWA Minneapolis to Dublin?

[DianaPrincessofWales]

If any of my fellow Disers have purchased airfare from the midwest to Dublin, how much did you have to pay? What is a fair price? And are prices going to sky-rocket soon? I'm looking at a price of $721 (includes all taxes and fees) from Expedia. Flying NWA with the dates being Sept. 15-24th. Anyone with opinions? Please share yours! I'm ready to bite the bullet and make the purchase. Reassure me please! Thanks!

 

[LittleMermaidsMom]

We flew to Dublin this time last year (4/29-5/9) from Detroit....I paid around $520/adult and $420/child on USAir.

I watched airfares for about 3 months and this was the best deal.. I tried NWA, since DTW is also one of their hub cities, but they couldn't beat the USAir price. We did have to connect through Philly and then Manchester, UK. But I know USAir now has a daily direct flight from Philly to Dublin, so you should just have the one connection.

I'm not sure if your price will go down for this fall with the way the gas prices are now, but we flew in the spring, which is considered more expensive for European travel than the fall, so it's possible the price may drop. I booked our airfare about 4 months prior to our trip and it only went up from there - it was up to over $700 by the time we left.

Oh, another thing, I found the best fares through the www.americanexpress.com site. Click on the travel section. I read about this tip somewhere and I don't know why their fares were cheaper than everyone elses, but they had better deals than Travelocity, Expedia or Orbitz. So it might be worth a try checking there.

Hope this helps!

 

[NotUrsula]

I fly from STL, but I generally don't go straight to Dublin, way too pricey. I find that it is (ironically) much less expensive to fly to London and then double back from there.

Our last trip cost us $230 rt to London on BA (STL-ORD on AA) then an add'l $60 r/t from London to Dublin on BMI. However, that was before the price of fuel started skyrocketing. Sales to anywhere in Europe from the US are really rare now, though Aer Lingus did have a few sales to Ireland this year. I'd watch Aer Lingus. There is also an agency called O'Connor Fairways out of NYC that specializes in Irish travel and offers charters that can be a bargain. My extended family has been using them regularly since the 60's, and they are consistently well-priced. Ireland is one of the few places that actually has a lot of decent charters out of the U.S.

I don't know how comfortable you are with coach seating, but sometimes it is really worthwhile to take a domestic flight to the East Coast and take your over the water leg from there; we find that going from Europe all the way to the Midwest while stuck in an int'l coach seat is a couple of hours more torture than we prefer to endure. It's not so bad E-bound because you will sleep, but W-bound is a bear.