Never been to WDW in mid-December, when is best time to buy airline tix?

[realhousewife]

I would want to make sure I have a flight before I make my final package payment on 11/2, correct? We are going to WDW from 12/17-12/23. I am worried that Christmas travel will make the price skyrocket, OR my family of 5 wont get on the same flight

Any advice would be great! TIA!

 

[craigkerstiens]

Flying back on the 23rd will probably increase your price some, but hopefully not too painfully. You should have no problem at least all getting tickets on the same flight. Overall for holidays I'd encourage booking around 45 days out. The range of 30-60 days is pretty commonly the cheapest range, though getting a little closer to the 60 day timeframe with it being near holidays may be safer.

 

[Gracie09]

Waiting that long would increase the risk of not being able to get seats together or even close, unless you are flying an airline that does not assign seats. I don't know how old your kids are, but if its a important to you, you may need to take it into account.

Yes I realize even if you have assigned seats they can change, but in the dozens of flights I've takes this has happened to me twice and both times I was able to move my seats back easily. But i do periodically check my seat assignments

 

[craigkerstiens]

It's also of note you can go through the ticket booking process without finalizing and select your seats before you check out. This would give you the ability to see how many seats are left on the plane and how many are together vs. split up.

 

[jec6613]

The 23rd is what's going to kill you. With a Friday Christmas, the entire week before has higher prices - if you're looking for the absolute cheapest and you're flexible +/-1 day either way on both ends, you can book at 45 days out. If you're not, watch the prices and purchase in the next few weeks to a month. Christmas has the double whammy of both lower capacity (airlines schedule C-checks over the winter and reduce their schedules to proactively handle weather contingencies) and high holiday travel. I'm not flexible for my December travel, so I purchased nice and early (and at $270 each RT, got a good price, too).

 

[jec6613]

It's also of note you can go through the ticket booking process without finalizing and select your seats before you check out. This would give you the ability to see how many seats are left on the plane and how many are together vs. split up.

DO NOT DO THIS!!! When the seat map is pulled up, it takes the seats out of inventory, and when you go back in to purchase it increases your price. Check the available seat maps (which are available elsewhere on the website for most carriers), or use ExpertFlyer which can show you the seatmaps for all airlines.

 

[craigkerstiens]

DO NOT DO THIS!!! When the seat map is pulled up, it takes the seats out of inventory, and when you go back in to purchase it increases your price. Check the available seat maps (which are available elsewhere on the website for most carriers), or use ExpertFlyer which can show you the seatmaps for all airlines.

My apologies, if you don't select any seats it will not take them out of inventory, so it's not that you should select your seats but as you mention pull up the seat map. But, also noted something like ExpertFlyer is easier as it does take the work out of it for you.

 

[jec6613]

My apologies, if you don't select any seats it will not take them out of inventory, so it's not that you should select your seats but as you mention pull up the seat map. But, also noted something like ExpertFlyer is easier as it does take the work out of it for you.

Even getting to that point, without selecting a seat, they're taken out of inventory, as they must guarantee availability. I'm not talking about the individual seats, but the fares themselves; there are only so many of class Q and N and so on fares available (and remember, many if not most tickets do not have assigned seats until 24 hours out, and most flights are oversold), and by proceeding to the page with the seat selection, you have removed those from inventory for the rest of the week. It's one of the reasons that Wednesday morning gets the cheapest flights - those seats are released back into the system on Tuesday night (except for SABRE, which releases Wednesday night).

 

[Starwind]

It in part depends on what airline you plan to fly.

We booked our December 2015 airfare months ago, right after the airline released Dec 2015 fares. Our airline currently says there are 3 seats left at the price we paid, so the price will be going up soon. Prices have already gone up for other flight combos that day, and for some flight combos our fare category no longer exists at any price. As far as I am aware the price has never gone *down*. Our airline has a price drop guarantee where if the price drops by >$25 and we notify them within 24 hours, they will refund the difference. So I check frequently

Our airline does NOT overbook their flights, and the prices in general only go up over time, with the exception of occasional sales with promo codes which will temporarily reduce the price for a day or few days. They have not had sales for December yet.

_SW

 

[jec6613]

Our airline does NOT overbook their flights, and the prices in general only go up over time, with the exception of occasional sales with promo codes which will temporarily reduce the price for a day or few days. They have not had sales for December yet.

Which airline is this? All mainline (over 100 passenger) US carriers oversell flights ...

 

[seashoreCM]

Even getting to that point, without selecting a seat, they're taken out of inventory, as they must guarantee availability. I'm not talking about the individual seats, but the fares themselves; there are only so many of class Q and N and so on fares available (and remember, many if not most tickets do not have assigned seats until 24 hours out, and most flights are oversold), and by proceeding to the page with the seat selection, you have removed those from inventory for the rest of the week. It's one of the reasons that Wednesday morning gets the cheapest flights - those seats are released back into the system on Tuesday night (except for SABRE, which releases Wednesday night).

This has got to be a severe bug in the airline's reservation software. If you pull up the seat map shortly after IPO and half the plane has not been selected yet then that entire half of the plane is taken out of inventory for the rest of the week?

 

[jec6613]

This has got to be a severe bug in the airline's reservation software. If you pull up the seat map shortly after IPO and half the plane has not been selected yet then that entire half of the plane is taken out of inventory for the rest of the week?

No, not the entire half of the plane. You're thinking seats as in the physical things, but airlines treat seats as virtual. On a plane with 150 passenger capacity with 16 first class seats (a pretty normal configuration) you may have, before anybody has booked:

- 35 extra deep discount seats
- 25 deep discount seats
- 25 discounted seats
- 25 award seats
- 25 full fare seats
- 6 instant upgrade first class
- 4 discount first class
- 4 award first class
- 4 full fare first class

Yes, I know it adds up to more than 150 seats, all airlines have more virtual seats to sell than physical seats on all flights so they can overbook a bit. This would be a pretty normal configuration for a not too busy route.

So if you go through a mock booking for a party of five, and you have extra deep discount seats, when you pull up the seat map the aircraft by making a booking you have no intention of completing, five extra deep discount seats are removed from that seat inventory and held for up to 48 hours before being re-released back into inventory. Sometimes, this isn't a problem, but on a real flight, you have 15-20+ levels of discounts available to you, so on average when you take a chunk out of inventory like that, that means that when you go back in you will be kicked to the next level of seats ... at a higher cost. Doing it when booking using miles can clean out the entire section of award seats.

Your physical seat assignment has nothing to do with this, it's a side effect of an FAA regulation where you must have a reserved virtual seat before they can offer you a physical seat, so they all do it this way, even airlines like WN who don't assign physical seats at all have a point at which the seats are removed from inventory before payment is collected.

This is why they offer seat maps independent of the booking system. And, by the way, yes, if you do go and do a bunch of fake bookings to check on things (in the dozens per day), eventually the airline does give you a call and can flag your account to push you to permanently higher fares (it's rare, but it does happen).

 

[lvdis]

So are you saying this ONLY happens if you look at the seat map while checking fares? It doesn't happen just by checking fares does it?

 

[jec6613]

So are you saying this ONLY happens if you look at the seat map while checking fares? It doesn't happen just by checking fares does it?

You can check fares all you want, and you can look at the seat map all you want, it's when you go through, start a booking that you have no intention of completing, and add passengers and then click to pull up the seat map to select seats that it occurs.

Side note: WDW's resort reservation system works in a similar way, there's a point before payment when the rooms are pulled out of inventory.

 

[lvdis]

You can check fares all you want, and you can look at the seat map all you want, it's when you go through, start a booking that you have no intention of completing, and add passengers and then click to pull up the seat map to select seats that it occurs.

Side note: WDW's resort reservation system works in a similar way, there's a point before payment when the rooms are pulled out of inventory.

OK, thank you that makes me feel better! I never take it through adding passengers if I don't intend to buy right then.

 

[jec6613]

OK, thank you that makes me feel better! I never take it through adding passengers if I don't intend to buy right then.

Yeah, this is why the airlines have a seat map out side of the booking system though, because to pull it up through the booking system, you have to put that information in for at least one person. I know for AA it's right here:

http://www.aa.com/seatmap/viewSeatsAccess.do

 

[Starwind]

Which airline is this? All mainline (over 100 passenger) US carriers oversell flights ...

Canadian carrier WestJet.

(let me rephrase: they do not intentionally overbook)