Planning to fly somewhere in the near future? Airfare are way down, even to places like Europe. And by using the Internet, you can make sure you get a good price.

Travel experts use words like "fantastic" and "super" to describe the bargains available right now. The drop in business travel is good news for vacation travelers. Hotels need to fill their rooms. Airlines need to fill their seats. And the deals are expected to last through the summer.

If you have the money, it's a great time to fly. Consider the following prices.

A round-trip ticket from Seattle to London in early July runs as low as $868, and that includes all taxes and fees.

How about San Francisco at the end of June? Tickets are as little as $146, round-trip.

And even Hawaii is on sale. Round-trip to Honolulu at the end of May is just $326.

But ticket prices are constantly changing. How do you know when to fly? Using Farecast or Yapta, you can track fares before you buy.

Jeff Pecor is the director of communications of Seattle-based Yapta.

"So you would know, both that Seattle to Boston flight was $700 last week, it's now $355 -- that's a pretty significant savings. And there are savings in here that have that significant of a price drop," he said.

Yapta does one more neat thing: you can set it to send you e-mail alerts when the price drops.

With Alaska or JetBlue, you can request a credit toward future travel. Southwest offers the same deal, but the airline is not on Yapta. With other airlines, if the price drops low enough, you can rebook, pay the penalty and pocket the savings.

Chris Burkhart says Yapta alerts saved her more than $600 on two flights in the U.S.

"It was incredibly easy," she said. "I called the airlines and they were very responsive and very friendly."

If you're looking for cheap flights, check out AirfareWatchdog.com. The site's goal is to search the Web for hidden discounts. If you want, the site will send you daily alerts to let you know what it found.

More information:

Eye-popping travel deals pose dilemma: Buy now or later?

The Hottest Travel Trends for Summer 2009

Airfare bargains in 'worldwide distress sale'