Flight cost to Europe - summer 2024

[therealbigredrules]

I'm seeing the cost of flights to Europe for the summer of 2024 more than double the cost we paid in the summer of 2022.  I have read it is the "revenge travel" impact from covid.  I thought much of that would have hit last summer.  Now, I would certainly expect some increase in cost over this time period, but more than double seems aggressive.  Anyone have some insight into if and or when they may be coming down and when the best time to book?

Much of what I read is demand related... so I get that... just looking for thoughts on if they might be coming down due to overpricing, /   have they overpriced and will they be coming down type information.......... I guess a guy can hope.

Cheers.

 

 

[Doug_Texas]

I’ve noticed that too.  Have been crossing my fingers that it is temporary due to Paris Olympics.

[smokeybandit]

European airlines are a mess right now with politics and eco movements.

[WAAAYTOOO]

The whole "COVID" explanation is just an excuse.  Inflation is real so that certainly factors in but it is mostly just price gauging....with all things, including cruising (JMO).

[Lovetocruise2002]

I have noticed the exact same thing. @Jax and I have been talking endlessly about how depressing it is. The prices I am seeing right now to fly to Barcelona in economy are the same prices first class would have cost us in the summer of 2022 when we flew to Heathrow. At the moment, for 4 of us to go to Barcelona in July 2024, the cost of airfare is even more than the cruise itself. It's terrible.

[AlmondFarmer]

I got RT non stop SFO to London for $990 when it was first available for a June 2024 Norway cruise. Cost is currently $1,500.

In June 2022 I flew SFO to Barcelona non stop for $700 RT. 

Prices have gone up but not double if purchased at right time, at least from my major airport. 

[Lovetocruise2002]

31 minutes ago, AlmondFarmer said:

I got RT non stop SFO to London for $990 when it was first available for a June 2024 Norway cruise. Cost is currently $1,500.

In June 2022 I flew SFO to Barcelona non stop for $700 RT. 

Prices have gone up but not double if purchased at right time, at least from my major airport. 

I booked it through Air2Sea. It started off high for us, and has remained high. From DTW-BCN/FCO-DTW, it's about $1800pp USD in economy. That is what it was released at, and that is what it is still currently sitting at. If I fly out of Toronto and fly Air Canada, the price is about $1200pp USD in economy. Still awful.

[teddy]

We are squirreling away even more money for our flights to/from Southampton in October 2024.  We expect to be shocked when when those flights are available to book. 
 

[Happy Cruisers]

Most people are looking for some secret handshake/book at 2:52 am on a Tuesday kind-of-trick to save money on airfare in a way that involves minimal action, but if someone is actually willing to try to help themselves, good standard advice for overseas travel is to search all available international airports, and then as-needed book a positioning flight to get there. And be as flexible as you can with your dates and times, because the logic is very linear; convenience = demand = higher cost.  

Real world example:

We live in a major city and from our local airport can fly nonstop to most of the developed world.  When traveling to Rome for our cruise earlier this year, we actually flew out of a major Canadian city (but direct home at the end) and that alone saved us something like 2x more than we paid for the cruise itself.  And that savings more than paid for the flight from here to Canada and an overnight at an airport hotel, plus it sort of added an extra destination to our trip.  

Play around on Google Flights and see how you shake out. 

It's a pain in the rump, but it is easier to save money than make money.  

[whitsmom]

I just booked our RT Flights from SDF to Rome for July 2024 a few weeks ago.  Delta Premium Select seats (Granddaughter's high school graduation cruise) for 3 of us.  I used points for $1000 off each ticket bring our cost of $2063 each and we get 2 checked bags each included.  I am so thankful that I had been saving my points!

[Rackham]

Something to keep in mind when looking at Air2Sea prices is that includes one checked bag per person. Or at least that's been the case with the flights I've investigated. That hasn't been the case when searching for economy flights on other websites. International roundtrip checked luggage has been am extra $150 or so when looking at the major carriers. 

Generic answer for best time to book is approx. 2 months after airfare was put on sale and at least 2 months before travel. Lowest price will be between these dates. However, thanks to cruise requirements (assuming arriving at least one day before embarkation and flying out same day as debarkation) the number of flights starts to become limited. Best deal flights might not be the best for cruising. 

[Ray]

You don't say where you are flying from or your destination! Also which airlines you are checking prices on. 

I fly from Aberdeen to london ( on BA )then on to NYC this year with jetblue and prices were no different to what i have paid previously over the past 5 years ( between £500 -£600 pp return ) 

 

[Doug_Texas]

This might be valuable information!  It’s better to wait at least 2 months after you can first book?

[OnCloud9x]

7 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

@Jax and I have been talking endlessly about how depressing it is.

I couldn't agree with this more: traveling is one of my absolute favorite ways to spend my time, but with overly inflated prices now, it makes it so much harder to do multiple trips per year! I feel so dramatic when I complain about it, but it is truly depressing. I keep telling myself that they've got to drop eventually, but at this point I'm not holding my breath...

[Zacharius]

5 hours ago, Happy Cruisers said:

Most people are looking for some secret handshake/book at 2:52 am on a Tuesday kind-of-trick to save money on airfare in a way that involves minimal action, but if someone is actually willing to try to help themselves, good standard advice for overseas travel is to search all available international airports, and then as-needed book a positioning flight to get there.

Just a caveat to be careful with something like this. Very careful. If you're booking separate tickets, you are not protected. Example - you want to fly Denver to London, but it's cheaper to fly Chicago to London. No problem, let me just book a separate, cheaper ticket on, say, Southwest or Frontier from Denver to Chicago, and then United/BA/AA from Chicago to London. 

Well, you're now on two separate origin/destination tickets - Denver to Chicago, and Chicago to London. Southwest/Frontier is only responsible to get you from Denver to Chicago; United/BA/AA is only responsible to get you from Chicago to London. If your DEN-CHI (be it MDW or ORD) is delayed, and you miss the ORD-LHR flight, you're in trouble and will probably have to buy a new, last-minute ticket to get yourself to London...and and subsequent flights on that registration are likely to be cancelled as you're now a no-show. 

So, if you do decide to book positioning flights, be smart and book BIG layovers (preferably overnight), and make sure it's really worth it (factoring in things like hotels, meals, ground transportation if needed (such as between Midway and O'Hare in my example), cost of your time, etc. etc.) 

[Montemy2419]

We will be returning from London in May and after looking at airfare costs we are cruising home on Cunard instead.  It ended up $2600 (inside room) for both of us and hopefully a relaxing week enjoying great food. A week of cruising or 14 hours of flying and 2 legs to get home, so the cruise won out in the end.

[Rackham]

40 minutes ago, Doug_Texas said:

This might be valuable information!  It’s better to wait at least 2 months after you can first book?

That's what I've seen with the charts several different fare tracker sites have posted. With that said, I also have a premium account with Going (formerly Scott's Cheap Flights) and the best I've been seeing from the airports I've asked to receive flight notices on is maybe $300 cheaper than what I've booked through Air2Sea shortly after fares were entered. So after paying for a checked bag on a less than ideal flight for the cheapest price, I might be saving $150 by waiting. That's nothing to sneeze at, but I'd rather have a better flight, have the price locked in, and know my travel arrangements have been taken care of. 

[Jax]

15 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I have noticed the exact same thing. @Jax and I have been talking endlessly about how depressing it is. The prices I am seeing right now to fly to Barcelona in economy are the same prices first class would have cost us in the summer of 2022 when we flew to Heathrow. At the moment, for 4 of us to go to Barcelona in July 2024, the cost of airfare is even more than the cruise itself. It's terrible.

Depressing for sure.  I never really checked prices to Europe but I have noticed a very high fuel surcharge of about $900 pp so that definitely adds to the cost of the airfare.  At this point my strategy is to buy WestJet raffle tickets and a chance to win flights anywhere WestJet flies. 

[Bruin Steve]

When we were in the middle of the pandemic--summer of 2021, we did back-to-backs on one of the first ships in the restart--Celebrity Apex out of Athens.  Booked our air through Celebrity Air/Air2Sea for and amazing $499 pp round trip, LAX-Athens!!!  The absolute low water mark in my lifetime.  Airlines were hurting, cruise lines were hurting.  Since then, they've been slowly but steadily trying to make it back from those lean times.  We do a lot of international cruising and have dealt with it constantly.

We're doing two major cruise vacations in the coming months...B2B Japan cruises on Millennium in March/April and B2B legs on the Serenade World Cruise, Southampton to Amsterdam in July/August.

Our Japan cruises were "lifted-and-shifted" every year from the original 2021...and we've booked air through Celebrity/Air2Sea every year...and noticed a steady rise in prices each year.  But, we booked AHEAD of the 330 days with Air2Sea and managed to get the round trip LAX-HND nonstop for a "mere" $1071 pp.  Thise prices have gone up a bit since we booked so we are glad we did it early.

For the Europe World Cruise segments, my original thought was to wait for Air2Sea to post prices...and see if we could get the AA or BA nonstop LAX to Heathrow and the KLM nonstop AMS to LAX for the trip home.  But, when the flights started becoming available on Air2Sea, the numbers seemed outrageous...So we used AAdvantage miles and picked up our LAX-LHR flight cheaply enough--for 30K AA miles (plus $5) pp.  The return AMS-LAX flights just came up on the boards yesterday, though the KLM flights were available earlier.   I called KLM directly and they wanted over $2000 for a coach seat one way!  I called Air2Sea and their price was still in excess of $1800!  I am accustomed to flying LAX to Europe round trip for much less than that...

So, last night, I went back to AA.com and used some more miles--AMS-LAX on British Airways with a stop at LHR--30K AA miles plus $294 pp.  We're set...basically a round trip LAX-LHR and AMS-LAX for 60,000 AA miles and $600 for two.  Beats the airline cash prices.

As a side note, today, my sister-in-law called me for help finding her and my brother-in-law airfare.  My nephew and his wife (and kids) live in Jaoa Pessoa, Brazil and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law want to visit.  Best airfare we could find for them, traveling in December, was just over $2,500 pp round trip--for ECONOMY class tickets!  WOW!

[BXcruiser]

Yikes! We cruise from Barcelona September 2024 so pricing isn't available yet but I've already told myself that the airfare will probably be more than the cruise. 

[Mike6453]

On 9/26/2023 at 7:28 AM, therealbigredrules said:

I'm seeing the cost of flights to Europe for the summer of 2024 more than double the cost we paid in the summer of 2022.  I have read it is the "revenge travel" impact from covid.  I thought much of that would have hit last summer.  Now, I would certainly expect some increase in cost over this time period, but more than double seems aggressive.  Anyone have some insight into if and or when they may be coming down and when the best time to book?

Much of what I read is demand related... so I get that... just looking for thoughts on if they might be coming down due to overpricing, /   have they overpriced and will they be coming down type information.......... I guess a guy can hope.

Cheers.

 

 

we just took odyssey for greek isles out of rome, we flew to rome from NY family of six (all economy) on delta came out to 9500. i was shocked when i booked, i even watched the prices for six months (the prices never dropped below 8500 and went as high as 15,000). were on the TA just my wife and I and this time decided to fly into Milan instead and will train to Civitavechia, its a bit of a train ride but well spend a few days in Milan, point is we got a much better deal into milan. it might be more affordable and a bonus stop to not fly to the city of the port and travel to port city on your own. 

[Zacharius]

28 minutes ago, Mike6453 said:

we just took odyssey for greek isles out of rome, we flew to rome from NY family of six (all economy) on delta came out to 9500. i was shocked when i booked, i even watched the prices for six months (the prices never dropped below 8500 and went as high as 15,000). 

One thing to consider when booking groups - it can sometimes be cheaper to break the group up in to smaller groups, and it's worth checking that out for future trips. An example of why (with hypothetical numbers and such): There are 3 tickets available in Fare Bucket A, and 10 seats tickets in the more expensive Fare Bucket B. If you're pricing six together, it's going to bypass the Fare Bucket A (because there are only three tickets available) and book all six in to the higher Fare Bucket B. If you split is up three and three, it would book three of you in to Fare Bucket A, and the other three in Fare Bucket B, resulting in a lower grand total. This isn't going to happen every time, but it's worth pricing out. The risk is that something happens during travel and three get re-booked on one route, and three on another route, because you're technically separate groups...but most flights do make it, and the risk still may be worth it depending on the savings. 

[TessFromFlorida]

Excellent advice given on this thread already! I also subscribe to Going and read TPG posts almost daily.

I track prices through Google flights and set up alerts. I have alerts direct to London for example if cruising out of Southampton, but also Dublin, Paris, and other cities where I may find deals.

You can search Google Flights out of specific airports but leave the destination field blank then zoom in over European cities to look for trends in pricing. I set up alerts out of my home airport Tampa, as well as Orlando, NYC, and Boston, where I know I can find cheap RT flights from Tampa.

In addition, I sign up for credit cards that offer a substantial number of points as a sign on bonus and use those. When I find they no longer hold value, I cancel and sign up for another card or upgrade for another bucket of points. Sapphire Reserve is a good all around card to hold on to, IMO. Delta and American Airlines also have a good sign on bonus. I prefer Delta because I get decent deals on Virgin Atlantic flights when booking with points.

Sometimes you can trade/purchase Avios (British Airways) at amazing deals (40%off), which get me from city to city in Europe at what I consider a steal (London to Zurich RT for less than $100 worth of Avios during peak travel dates in July. Includes a checked bag and the ability to select my seat- booked just this weekend).

I always purchase my tickets about 9 months out. I find they only go up the closer you get to the departure date. 

Last summer we sailed out of Civitavecchia and it was intense, but not the worst by far when I'm chasing that deal... TPA>DTW>LHR>ZUR>FCO then on return FCO>CPH>LHR>ATL>TPA but it cost me $602 total out of pocket for Comfort + on Delta and its equivalent on VA, SAS, and Swiss for 3 seats (adult fare for all) with 1 checked bag each. Half of the money spent was for the "luxury" of food, snacks, and a seat close to the front of the plane. Found the flights using Google, securing through Chase Rewards and using points + cash. Was it nuts, yes, but worth it because I could upgrade our cabin w the savings.

2022 cost me far less, but I'm embarrassed to even share that wild flight schedule

Free airport lounge access through Priority Pass, a perk of some low fee credit cards, is AWESOME if you do book a trip w 2 or more layovers. 

 

[Zacharius]

26 minutes ago, TessFromFlorida said:

I have alerts direct to London for example if cruising out of Southampton, but also Dublin, Paris, and other cities where I may find deals.

 

Don't forget Southampton itself. KLM does fly there via Amsterdam, and KLM is a Delta partner, so it's very possible to get routed (say) USA - AMS - Southampton.

KLM offers flights in to British cities that a lot of other major airlines don't...places like Southampton, Cardiff, Leeds, Teeside, Bristol, and more. I only say that for people who may be looking to fly to the UK (for cruises or not) and don't always want to go straight in to London. A rather simple connection via AMS can dump you in to smaller, easier British airports that could be a great place to start (or end) a vacation. Or business for that matter...my colleague and I split some work in Bristol, and she (as a Delta frequent flier) pretty much always goes via AMS straight in to Bristol. Myself, as an AA frequent flier, just goes in to Heathrow and takes ground transit from there. Often times, it ends up being a wash time wise. 

[Rene Desmarais]

I guess my future mediterranean & european cruises are on hold till flight prices come down..   hope..

[Ray]

2 hours ago, Zacharius said:

 

KLM offers flights in to British cities that a lot of other major airlines don't...places like Southampton, Cardiff, Leeds, Teeside, Bristol, and more.

It costs me less to fly aberdeen to Amsterdam then onto leeds than it does Aberdeen to Leeds direct. 

[Zacharius]

3 hours ago, Rene Desmarais said:

I guess my future mediterranean & european cruises are on hold till flight prices come down..   hope..

You might be waiting a while. Tourism between North America and Europe, especially in the summer, shows no signs of slowing down. Additionally, business ties are continuing to ramp back up. Demand is there, and prices are matching. 

[Zacharius]

2 hours ago, Ray said:

It costs me less to fly aberdeen to Amsterdam then onto leeds than it does Aberdeen to Leeds direct. 

How does it compare to a train? 

[Ray]

Just now, Zacharius said:

How does it compare to a train? 

Train prices are shocking! 

I can fly to london for £100 return ( about 450 miles ) train to Edinburgh is about £70 and thats only 130 miles. 

Train to london would cost more than flying. 

Don't get me wrong you can get some cracking deals on the trains if you are lucky to get a sale on the date you want to travel. 

I looked at going to Edinburgh by train last year for the xmas markets, i got 4 nights in Budapest including flights for the same price as 2 nights in Edinburgh. 

You just got to shop around and try and be flexible with dates! Staying on an extra day may cost you £200 for  hotel but save you £600 on flights. 

[JasonOasis]

22 hours ago, Mike6453 said:

we just took odyssey for greek isles out of rome, we flew to rome from NY family of six (all economy) on delta came out to 9500. i was shocked when i booked, i even watched the prices for six months (the prices never dropped below 8500 and went as high as 15,000). were on the TA just my wife and I and this time decided to fly into Milan instead and will train to Civitavechia, its a bit of a train ride but well spend a few days in Milan, point is we got a much better deal into milan. it might be more affordable and a bonus stop to not fly to the city of the port and travel to port city on your own. 

That is about $1,583 per person roundtrip or $791.50 each way.  I hate to say it but that isn't a bad price at all for Europe.  And of that $9,500 dollars or $1,583 dollars per person how much of it was taxes and fees?  Depending on the airport you are flying into in Europe the taxes and fees can vary widely in some cases adding more than $500 dollars to the price of your ticket.

For those Americans who have a European cruise booked for summer 2024 I would say you need to be flexible.  If your cruise is leaving on Sunday, instead of departing the US on Friday why not depart the US on Thursday or perhaps even Wednesday or Tuesday.  Those days are much cheaper to fly out of the US to Europe than leaving on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or even a Monday. If flying out earlier isn't a choice look at other major airports around Europe.   Europe has a fantastic network of trains it may be cheaper to fly into a different international city and take a train to the cruise port.  Another thing to look at is your departure back to the US again leaving Europe on Saturday, Sunday even Monday is going to be expensive try leaving on a Tuesday or Wednesday.  You have to be flexible if your going to save some money.

Also another tool you can use to save money especially if you are not loyal to one particular airline is Google Flights.  For example on Google Flights is someone needs to fly Chicago ORD to Rome FCO in August 2024 if they were to leave ORD on a Wednesday their flight would only cost them $669 dollars roundtrip but that same flight leaving on Friday would cost them $1.185. 

[BXcruiser]

9 minutes ago, JasonOasis said:

That is about $1,583 per person roundtrip or $791.50 each way.  I hate to say it but that isn't a bad price at all for Europe.  And of that $9,500 dollars or $1,583 dollars per person how much of it was taxes and fees?  Depending on the airport you are flying into in Europe the taxes and fees can vary widely in some cases adding more than $500 dollars to the price of your ticket.

For those Americans who have a European cruise booked for summer 2024 I would say you need to be flexible.  If your cruise is leaving on Sunday, instead of departing the US on Friday why not depart the US on Thursday or perhaps even Wednesday or Tuesday.  Those days are much cheaper to fly out of the US to Europe than leaving on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or even a Monday. If flying out earlier isn't a choice look at other major airports around Europe.   Europe has a fantastic network of trains it may be cheaper to fly into a different international city and take a train to the cruise port.  Another thing to look at is your departure back to the US again leaving Europe on Saturday, Sunday even Monday is going to be expensive try leaving on a Tuesday or Wednesday.  You have to be flexible if your going to save some money.

Also another tool you can use to save money especially if you are not loyal to one particular airline is Google Flights.  For example on Google Flights is someone needs to fly Chicago ORD to Rome FCO in August 2024 if they were to leave ORD on a Wednesday their flight would only cost them $669 dollars roundtrip but that same flight leaving on Friday would cost them $1.185. 

Our cruise departs on a Sunday so we plan to fly out on Wednesday, as we won't arrive until Thursday anyway. 

[ChessE4]

Remembering what we paid in 2015 to travel to Europe, any fare near 1700 today from East Coast seems reasonable after adjusting for inflation.

[cdngirl]

I booked our flights for Venice (May 2024 cruise) and buying the lowest class (not refundable/exchangeable) saved a lot of money. We instead purchased a travel insurance (best prices for the flights were on FlightHub), so it covers us if something happens (illness, weather, etc). I don't see why we would need to change the flights unless there's an emergency, so it saved us almost $800 doing this. We will also bring 2 carry-ons and 1 checked luggage only to save on luggage costs. 

[Pattycruise]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:37 PM, Zacharius said:

One thing to consider when booking groups - it can sometimes be cheaper to break the group up in to smaller groups, and it's worth checking that out for future trips. An example of why (with hypothetical numbers and such): There are 3 tickets available in Fare Bucket A, and 10 seats tickets in the more expensive Fare Bucket B. If you're pricing six together, it's going to bypass the Fare Bucket A (because there are only three tickets available) and book all six in to the higher Fare Bucket B. If you split is up three and three, it would book three of you in to Fare Bucket A, and the other three in Fare Bucket B, resulting in a lower grand total. This isn't going to happen every time, but it's worth pricing out. The risk is that something happens during travel and three get re-booked on one route, and three on another route, because you're technically separate groups...but most flights do make it, and the risk still may be worth it depending on the savings. 

Be careful with this.  Each “small group” gets its own confirmation #.   The issue I had with this is the airline moved  seats we had together and when I questioned it it was due to the separate bookings.  I had 3 different reservations for a family of 6 for combinations of the “2 seats at this price”,  “2 seats with points” snd 2 at regular fare.  One set of 2 were my kids.  This was pre pandemic.  No idea why they moved our seats and it was up to us  to fix it by asking passengers to move.

[Mike6453]

On 9/28/2023 at 3:08 PM, JasonOasis said:

That is about $1,583 per person roundtrip or $791.50 each way.  I hate to say it but that isn't a bad price at all for Europe.  And of that $9,500 dollars or $1,583 dollars per person how much of it was taxes and fees?  Depending on the airport you are flying into in Europe the taxes and fees can vary widely in some cases adding more than $500 dollars to the price of your ticket.

For those Americans who have a European cruise booked for summer 2024 I would say you need to be flexible.  If your cruise is leaving on Sunday, instead of departing the US on Friday why not depart the US on Thursday or perhaps even Wednesday or Tuesday.  Those days are much cheaper to fly out of the US to Europe than leaving on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or even a Monday. If flying out earlier isn't a choice look at other major airports around Europe.   Europe has a fantastic network of trains it may be cheaper to fly into a different international city and take a train to the cruise port.  Another thing to look at is your departure back to the US again leaving Europe on Saturday, Sunday even Monday is going to be expensive try leaving on a Tuesday or Wednesday.  You have to be flexible if your going to save some money.

Also another tool you can use to save money especially if you are not loyal to one particular airline is Google Flights.  For example on Google Flights is someone needs to fly Chicago ORD to Rome FCO in August 2024 if they were to leave ORD on a Wednesday their flight would only cost them $669 dollars roundtrip but that same flight leaving on Friday would cost them $1.185. 

for sure, we left the wednesday before the cruise. We also used google flights, atlhtough sometimes those added fees and taxes are not clearly shown and class of tickets can differ (like delta basic to delta main)

[Jax]

So…….. I just learned that the summer Olympics are happening in Paris July 26-Aug 11. A friend who is a flight attendant believes this may be a contributing factor for high airfare this summer.  And of course, my cruise is smack in the middle of them. How did I not know that Olympics were happening in Paris. LOL Anyone else with me? 

[smokeybandit]

23 minutes ago, Jax said:

So…….. I just learned that the summer Olympics are happening in Paris July 26-Aug 11. A friend who is a flight attendant believes this may be a contributing factor for high airfare this summer.  And of course, my cruise is smack in the middle of them. How did I not know that Olympics were happening in Paris. LOL Anyone else with me? 

 

I don't think that has much to do with it.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Does anyone even care about the Olympics anymore ?

I hope it doesn’t negatively affect your trip, @Jax.

[Zacharius]

12 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Does anyone even care about the Olympics anymore ?

I try to get to a couple each decade. I've been obsessed with the Olympics my entire life even though my country has never won a gold (and have never competed in Winter Olympics, which is actually my preferred Olympics). I do think I'll try to get to Paris. 

[Jax]

13 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Does anyone even care about the Olympics anymore ?

This made me laugh out loud. My thoughts exactly. LOL It’s why I had no idea they were happening. 

 

14 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I hope it doesn’t negatively affect your trip, @Jax.

Well since we have never been to Europe we probably won’t know any better. Lol But I am definitely trying to book early to lock in prices. I booked our hotels several weeks ago and I am so glad that I did. Prices have doubled and our room category is no longer available.  I grabbed our flights last week through air2sea (first time using them) ….. and don't even get me started on the cost of 3 premium economy seats.  I defected from WestJet to Air Canada which saved me several thousand.  Reyd is graduating high school this year so I keep justifying these high costs. He is worth it.