Fare Sales to London -- When?
 

I'm trying to get my friend to come with my on a trip to London this spring. April 9 to April 17. I got there on miles, but I don't have enough for him too, so we've been watching the fares, waiting for a sale.

Everything has been really expensive for the April timeframe. SFO->LON has been consistently returning $600+. Today AA has a fare $465 all in, but that still seems expensive.

Anybody have any comments on when (or if) there will be a spring sale? I remember $350 fares from the west coast to London in past years, but it seems like they would have happened by now. Maybe we should take the $465?

$465 is a good deal, considering that the cheapest fare I see is in the $530 range with the dates you provided. Gone are the times when you could find the $350 fares from the West Coast to London. Higher fuel costs plus fuller airplanes are driving prices up. London remains on the cheap side for Europe (with AMS) though..

I don't think that's out of line, you are looking at weekend dates, so those will be higher then midweek, you can do midweek around that time frame for $417 total.

Not sure if you're familiar with how airfares work, so I'll throw a few points out and maybe they'll be useful.

Tickets for the spring and summer in Europe are high season and going to be more expensive than fall and winter, no matter when you buy them.

The $99 each way fare sales (NYC to London, for example) are not because you caught them doing a promotion, but because there is not enough demand to fill seats at higher prices. (Well... they in fact ARE doing a promotion, but only because they know traffic patterns are pretty constant.)

Within those basic paramaters there may be smaller differences based on competiton and what fare class is available and you can get your hands on, but in general, the earlier you buy, the better.

I say if you can be firm about your dates now, you may as well lock it in now.