SMF to LHR/LGW

The cheapest one-way ticket I can find right now is through sidestep.com, leaving from Sacramento International and arriving in either the Heathrow or Gatwick London Airports, on either October 14th, 15th, or the 21st, is about $600.

That seems awfully high for a one-way ticket, but it's significantly lower than most I've been looking at.

Can anybody offer tips on how to find a cheaper flight? Or is this a fantastic deal and I can't get any better? Perhaps buying two seperate tickets, for example, one to NY, then from NY fly to London?

I have 11,800 miles on my Northwest WorldPerks account, but I've never used miles before and I'm not sure if that's going to get me a better deal than the $600. Northwest seems expensive ($1,300+ range).

What are your guys' thoughts/advice?

Thanks in advance!

I just got an email from Virgin that they are having a sale.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/us/specialoffers/usspecialoffers.jsp?WT.mc_id=us_JSSept08NoFlyingActivity

Hope that helps!

I'd say $600 is pretty good for a one-way, considering the huge hike in airline prices recently. I flew one-way from ABQ (New Mexico) to LHR about 6 weeks ago and the cheapest ticket I could get was $800 one way.

I'm not sure that your airmiles will get you very far, to be honest - you'd need at least 50,000 airmiles to get a seat on a flight to Europe or at least 15,000 to get an upgrade from coach class on a flight to Europe that you have already paid for (or 5,000 miles for an upgrade on a US Domestic flight only).

Have you looked into round-trip fares at all? Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket and then just not use the return leg.

Have you looked into round-trip fares at all? Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket and then just not use the return leg.

  I was going to say the same; we've almost always found r/t tickets to be cheaper than o/w tickets.

Not sure how this applies to you, but either Continental or BA had one-way flights for 25K miles + taxes in cash between London and NY.  Probably more than for California to London. 

All in all, $600 doesn't seem too expensive...is that after taxes?  Should be.

$600 for a one way from the west coast isn't a bad price at all (I'm assuming it's after taxes.)  One ways tend to be more expensive than round trips anyway. I'd take it.

When I came home in March, the cheapest way for me to get back was to purchase a round trip, I paid about $760 and flew from Redding, CA to SFO, SFO to LAX and LAX to LHR. A one way would have been over $1200.
If you can get to SFO it might be cheaper and you could get direct. Possibly looking at Round Trip and not using the return leg. Some airlines offer that if you don't use a portion of your ticket then you can use it as a credit towards another flight if used within 12 months. I looked into it but seemed to be more of a pain than it was worth. In my case round trip ticket saved me over $440. Worth a shot.

Thanks for your input, guys!

I did actually find one for about $40 cheaper on that price guru site:

One way, October 20th (Monday is actually cheaper??) SMF > London= $557

Not too bad! I'm still hunting for cheaper. Round-trip is better in the long run if I scheduled it for when I wanted to visit, but I don't even have enough money for a one way right now, and round trips seem to be at least $800. San Fransisco is about $100 cheaper- $447, but I live two hours away and my family is driving, so I'd spend more on gas.

Thanks again!

I totally didn't mention this before, but cheapfareguru.com. The guy who runs the site (Sam) is really really nice....just don't book AirIndia

Did you try BMI out of Las Vegas?