I need your advice on purchasing plane tickets for 3 adults. I've had a fair amount of experience with the capricious nature of airfares for travel between the U.S. and Europe. However, I'm still not sure about how long to wait, or whether to wait, before purchasing tickets for our autumn trip. The itinerary is from the Washington, DC/Baltimore area to Barcelona on September 17 or 18, and returning from Bologna on October 7. Fares seem awfully high now, even considering the fuel surcharges. The cheapest I've found is $923-$998US/each. (Of course, if I could have purchased them in January or February I would have saved over $150US per ticket! That sound you hear is me hitting my head against a wall.)

I check several online sites at least a couple times a day, including kayak.com, orbitz.com, onetravel.com, cheaptickets.com, ITASoftware.com, individual airline sites, etc. Anybody have any thoughts on whether I should just bite the bullet now or wait a little longer in hopes of saving some money? Many thanks in advance!

Mark Boyds, Maryland U.S.A.