Budget Travel - LAX-Paris in July...any tips for good airfare?

I'm trying to help my brother price out a ticket from LAX to Paris this July (he's going for a wedding, so stuck trying to go during the peak summer season). Prices are unbelievably high. Normally I'd get him 2 separate tickets, 1 through London, but taxes there seem to be much higher than they used to be.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks to getting decent airfare during this expensive period? I looked into cashing in miles for him, but it seems like I can get him there, but not back!

Thanks!

This is probably kind of a stretch (a loooong stretch) but have you or your brother looked into a discount carriers like Zoom? Zoom don't seem to fly out of LA so you'd have to make a couple of connections. Either fly up to Vancouver (via a seat sale you can find or miles) and then into CDG directly (via Zoom). Or get to San Diego, fly to LHR (via Zoom) and then get to Paris (chunnel)?

We flew Zoom to CDG last year from YVR (Vancouver) and we thought it was decent. A couple of coworker flew on Zoom too and they didn't have any complaints. Zoom also has seat sales so you have to watch for those.

Summertime to europe- look at an award redemption. You can easily get a value of >3 cents per mile on a standard award. Be flexible- you'd be surprised how you can squeeze out an award, even during peak travel season. Last july, I flew MSY-MCO-MAN-CDG on DL/VS/AF using CO miles. Annoying but worth the cash saved.

Other than that, look at charter carriers- which means look at european carriers. LTU (www.ltu.de, owned by air berlin) flies nonstop from LAX to dusseldorf, I think- then it's an easy hope to paris. I think your closest charter "hub" would be las vegas- they get service from condor to frankfurt and mytravel to manchester, among other carriers.

If you can be "creative" enough: NWA has currently incredible inaugural fares from SEA to LHR for June/July nonstop; LAX is included in the sale, but fares are higher. Plenty of low-cost possibilities from London to Paris.

You don't provide dates, you don't indicate the "high"fare, but you could look into flying LAX/DUB non stop on EI and then connecting to CDG.

Note: you would have to overnight in DUB on the return though

There are occasional fare sales on Air Tahiti Nui for the LAX-CDG portion of their PPT-LAX-CDG routing.

Thanks for the tips everyone...some good things here that I hadn't thought of.