Airfare - Did I miss the best price?

[JamesMom]

Planning a December 15-22 trip from DFW and have been watching air prices while we save up cash. 4 tickets were $1,100 up until last week when it jumped to $1,200. Should of bought then because this week they are $1,600 These are for early morning non-stop.
Should I buy now or is there is slight chance of a decrease? We are 6 months out, but we are traveling near Christmas. Praying that the prices go back down some...

 

[Marionnette]

Planning a December 15-22 trip from DFW and have been watching air prices while we save up cash. 4 tickets were $1,100 up until last week when it jumped to $1,200. Should of bought then because this week they are $1,600 These are for early morning non-stop.
Should I buy now or is there is slight chance of a decrease? We are 6 months out, but we are traveling near Christmas. Praying that the prices go back down some...

Check your flights on kayak.com or bing.com/travel. Both of those websites have fare predictors that will advise you as to whether they feel that your fares will continue to rise, fall or stay the same. It's not foolproof but they are much better at guessing than I am.

P.S. - Part of the reason for the prices rising so quickly is because a.) you're traveling to/from a resort area on a Sunday and b.) Dec. 22 marks the beginning of the holiday travel period. If you could possibly alter your dates, you may find more affordable prices.

 

[Eastern]

Keep watching. Last year I broke down and paid 400 something a ticket because it was around 14 weeks out. A couple weeks later the tickets were in the low 300s. (NJ-MCO during NYE week). Of course, ymmv.

btw I think under $300 per ticket for holiday travel is not bad!

 

[everythingALICE]

I would also suggest using the fare predictor on bing. There have certainly been times when it has advised to buy now (and I did), and then prices dropped, but on the whole I think it is very helpful in determining if you should buy now or wait for an anticipated price drop.

 

[Egdisney]

Are you checking on the same day each week? Fares at Southwest.com are always cheaper on Tues. We also changed our flight from a sunday to a mon bc the sun flights stayed higher, more than $60 higher! It was cheaper to stay another day at disney! Yay!

 

[Tigger1]

The flight is $45 cheaper on the 17th. That would save $180.

 

[tvguy]

Of course it's holiday time, but must be a popular route. I just booked a flight into DFW from SMF that week for $280 RT per person. We have family there and have been going almost every year for 31 years, the lowest fare we ever got was years ago $198, normally it is in the $350 to $450 range, so at least on that route, fares are way way down.

 

[JamesMom]

OP here. Unfortunately the dates are locked as we want free dining and only 5 vacation days from DH work. Now I see the early morning flights ( including returning leg) is $1,400 - $200 less than yesterday, but $200 more than last week. However, if I get the 7pm return flight for $1,500 - I get an extra day at the World. If I am going to pay more, might get more value - right?
Calling hubby about this right now though $1,500 is killing me. Oh, and thanks for the predictor - Kayak says the price will go up this week.

 

[mcraige]

Any time I can find RT airfare from DFW to MCO for < $300 I jump on it immediately. Last year, we actually drove to AUS and saved about $150/ticket.

BTW... my favorite airfare comparison site is google.com/flights. It's the simplest to use, to it does send you to the individual airline site for booking.

 

[Grammy4Lizzy]

Sometimes it is cheaper to buy 2 tickets, clear your cookies and then buy again. Some of the sites will only offer higher prices unless you clear the cookies so they don't know how often you check.

 

[jsmith]

airfare in general is cheapest 60 to 45 days out.We fly ALOT both CONUS and OCONUS and i will monitor fares now but unless an airline was running what i knew to be an awesome sale (i.e Denver to Honolulu for less than 400pp) i would not consider purchasing tix for those days before labor day when you are still getting summer fare.

 

[Gorillamac]

I like to watch

Google.com/flights

and then Southwest on it's own. Pretty good gauge along with bing.com/travel

 

[JamesMom]

Thanks for all the replies. We bit the bullet yesterday and bought the $1,500 tickets with early arrival and late departure. While I felt sick over the money I could have saved buying earlier, I feel relief today when the same exact flight was $1,900 this morning!! flight prices are crazy!

ETA: I checked kayak and they quoted $2,100 for the flight this afternoon!! Travelocity still had the $1,900 price. Glad I got the price I did!

 

[honeybunches]

We paid $1100 for 4 tickets for our direct flights from Asheville to Sanford through Allegiant. Way more than what we paid last year ($400 for 4) but hubby said to just get them. We really couldn't make the rest of our plans until we had the flights set in stone.

 

[zilp]

Thanks for all the replies. We bit the bullet yesterday and bought the $1,500 tickets with early arrival and late departure. While I felt sick over the money I could have saved buying earlier, I feel relief today when the same exact flight was $1,900 this morning!! flight prices are crazy!

ETA: I checked kayak and they quoted $2,100 for the flight this afternoon!! Travelocity still had the $1,900 price. Glad I got the price I did!

Glad you got your tickets. It seems like we play this game of "should we wait or buy now?" for airline tickets every year. So stressful! At least now that this is done, you can now focus on the fun part of planning

 

[seashell724]

I'm trying to find where on the kayak app has the fare predictor. Can't seem to find it. Can anyone help me out?

 

[seashell724]

Found it!

 

[brekin67]

On Thursday, our ticket with SWA was $116 for the return flight. I went to purchase on Friday and it was $472 for the same flight.

 

[DisneyHeather]

We needed 9 tickets out of SFO for our trip December 8-19 and in a matter of days the flight we'd originally wanted went up by $50 each. So we picked a different flight time and just went ahead and bought them the other night. The next day the flights we purchased had gone up in price. Now I plan to just not check anymore because I don't need to know if they go down.

 

[hkgripp]

We needed 9 tickets out of SFO for our trip December 8-19 and in a matter of days the flight we'd originally wanted went up by $50 each. So we picked a different flight time and just went ahead and bought them the other night. The next day the flights we purchased had gone up in price. Now I plan to just not check anymore because I don't need to know if they go down.

If they go down call the airline and they should give you a credit. At least they did for mine