LONDON from L.A. Lowest Airfares

I am thinking of going to London from Los Angeles in June 2004 for 3 weeks.
Current search for airfares indicate London is about $509 on Continental. I
called all the consolidators that were advertised in the L.A. Times last week
and they all said the summer fares were not out yet.
Question 1: Is $509 a good price when compared to possible future sales (the
only way to answer this question would be to have knowledge about what the
lowest price was for June 2003 flights when looking at sales in early 2003).
Question 2: If $509 is not the best price, when do you expect the fares to
come down?
Question 3: I have AA frequent flyer miles and would like to fly AA so I can
get miles and use a $125 coupon I have. Is there anyone experienced in AA
flights to access the probability that AA might have a sale for around $600 or
so?
Question 4: Can anyone who went to London in June 2003 and did similar research
to what I am doing now remember the lowest fares available in early 2003 or
late 2002.
Question 5: Has anyone used Priceline for a similar flight? I have been to the
Priceline Advice site and have found limited information about this. I guess I
could go and make a bid and see what happens.
Question 6: Is there a link that might indicate all current and past sales so
I could adetermine the probability of lower prices in the future.
Thanks for any advice in advance, Rick

I am thinking of going to London from Los Angeles in June 2004 for 3
weeks. Current search for airfares indicate London is about $509 on
Continental.

Orbitz and Travelocity both show a fare for about $485, on the CO codeshare
on VS.

Question 1: Is $509 a good price when compared to possible future sales

Yes, and of course $485 is a really good fare. June is shoulder season,
I'd be surprised if prices went much lower.

Question 3: I have AA frequent flyer miles and would like to fly AA so I can
get miles and use a $125 coupon I have. Is there anyone experienced in AA
flights to access the probability that AA might have a sale for around $600 or
so?

CO's spring fares are good for departures through 6/15, AA's only
through 5/30, so unles you want to leave earlier, I wouldn't expect AA
to come down much.

Dunno about Priceline, but Hotwire also offers a flight for $485 so
that seems to be the price. Priceline rarely takes bids much below
the lowest published airfare these days, they're more useful for
hotels.

You might look at skyauction.com. If you're patient and are sure not
to overbid (being careful to look at the $100 or so taxes and fees
they tack on to every ticket and the surcharge if you leave from a
different city than the one the ticket is priced from), you can get a
good deal there. I've used them to buy a ticket on NW ROC-DTW-LGW
which worked out fine.

Look, for example at the auction at
http://www.skyauction.com/action/offer?OFFER_ID=786103 The current bid
is $202, but you have to add on $105 for taxes and $130 to leave from
LAX, so it's really $437, so there's no point in bidding more than
about $240 in this auction.

John R. Levine wrote:
You might look at skyauction.com. If you're patient and are sure not to
overbid (being careful to look at the $100 or so taxes and fees they tack
on to every ticket and the surcharge if you leave from a different city
than the one the ticket is priced from), you can get a good deal there.
I've used them to buy a ticket on NW ROC-DTW-LGW which worked out fine.

How does it work in terms of dates? Many of the offers on the site say
"roundtrip anytime". How is availability determined?

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu

You might look at skyauction.com. If you're patient and are sure not to
overbid (being careful to look at the $100 or so taxes and fees they tack
on to every ticket and the surcharge if you leave from a different city
than the one the ticket is priced from), you can get a good deal there.
I've used them to buy a ticket on NW ROC-DTW-LGW which worked out fine.

How does it work in terms of dates? Many of the offers on the site
say "roundtrip anytime". How is availability determined?

When the auction is over, you call them up and make the reservation
and they tell you if they have inventory for the dates you want. If
you need to fly on particular dates, Skyauction probably isn't for
you, but if you have some date flexibility it doesn't seem to be much
of a problem. If you look at the set of cities and surcharges for
each auction, you can usually tell what airline it is if the auction
doesn't say, and get a good idea by seeing what dates the airline has
cheapish seats available.

I've heard complaints about Skyauction, but they mostly are that once
you've bought the ticket, it's hard to change or refund it. Well,
yeah, cheap plane tix are like that.