Request help - Vancouver/Seattle (YVR/SEA) to Zurich (ZRH) 5/18 - 6/22

[abh12]

I'm trying to find the lowest fares (of course) for this trip & I am a little lost as to where to look. I don't think I do Priceline bids as the departure time on the return leg must be after 10AM. And I don't see any option to bid unless you accept any flight, which may depart as early as 5AM.

Vancouver (YVR) 5.18.06 --> Zurich (ZRH) 6.22.06 or

Seattle (SEA) 5.18.06 --> Zurich (ZRH) 6.22.06

Dates are flexible

Departure time on return leg must be 10AM or later.

This is for 7 R/T tickets (adult, all the same)

Hotwire is pulling up fares in the $857 - $1100 range. The lowest fares I have found are $796 including taxes through Mobissimo.com. Any suggestions as to other airlines or travel search engines? Or does anyone know how I can bid on Priceline for tickets that have a departure time of 10AM or later? Thanks for any suggestions.

[WillTravel]

You can't choose the departure time with Priceline. You also can't bid with Canadian cities.

You probably just missed the Air Canada seat sale, although it's possible some seats still remain at a low price. Tickets are often cheaper if you have a less-than-30-days stay.

$796 is not a bad price for those dates.

It's possible that a combination of a SEA/YVR - somewhere flight (probably London), plus a low-cost airline to Zurich, might be cheaper. Are you interested in this possibility?

Sometimes airlines change their departure times. What would you do if you bought your tickets, and then a 10 AM departure was changed to 8 AM, for example? You would likely have the option to cancel, but at that point it would be hard to get new tickets at a reasonable price.

How much of a factor is it to get across the border, in your case? I do fly from Seattle sometimes, but the time and hassle and uncertainty makes it an unattractive option unless I am saving a bundle and/or getting a much superior routing!

[abh12]

Thank you for the helpful advice. Getting to Seattle is no problem for us. A change of departure (to an earlier time) would cause grief, but there probably isn't much point in worrying about that possibility. If it happened, we'd have to deal with it then.

I tried searching for SEA-LON or YVR-LON flights and then a seperate ticket for LON-ZRH. I can find an overall price about $20 less doing that. But there might be some low cost airlines flying out of London that I don't know about. Will keep looking, thanks again for the advice.

[WillTravel]

I think you're right - it would be almost impossible to beat the $796 substantially.

One relatively inexpensive YVR-LGW flight - http://www.canadian-affair.com (check the prices in pounds, not Canadian $).

But the low-cost carriers aren't that cheap on this route - http://www.whichbudget.com

[abh12]

Those are great links. It seems that $790-ish is the best possible fare to Zurich in May. $675 is possible to Geneva due to the discount regional carriers that you pointed out, but they do not fly out of Zurich. I appreciate your help.