Best airfare for Christmas, when?

[LeslieG]

When did you get the best airfare for Christmas travel? Did you book as soon as rates were posted? Did you find any sales? I'm just trying to plan for this coming Christmas and decide if I should book as soon as rates come out or wait for a possible sale later on.

 

[Darcy03231]

For Christmas travel I would book sooner rather than later. Airfare never seems to decrease for travel over holidays, but increases the closer you get. When DS was going to school in Ft. Lauderdale I always booked his airfare home for the holidays by summer. I never found it lower after that.

 

[Ub_Iwerks]

I took a chance and waited until Southwest released their prices, which was mid-August. I still ended up paying much less than any other airline was giving me in March. I also knew with Southwest that I would be able to get a credit to my account if I ended up going with another airline. Every other airline I looked only had non-refundable tickets for their cheapest flights.

 

[dvc guy]

We travel south every year for the Christmas holiday and the answer is book as soon as they become available. No one is giving seats away over the holidays and once the cheap seats are gone the airlines are quite happy to wait to sell the balance at the higher fares.

People will tell you to wait and see, but it you see a fares under 129 each way jump on it, you will not be sorry. Major carriers will start selling seats in the next week or so, keep you eyes out and let us know how you did.

 

[Geoff_M]

We spent Christmas at WDW in 2004 and we found that it was best to wait a while before buying. There were a few cheap fares when the flights were initially released ~330 days out, but then they stayed high for several months. However, they did come down and we booked around July. We got decent prices, but had we waited a couple of more weeks we could have saved about $30 more per person when the prices dropped again.

 

[LeslieG]

I'm actually looking at CLE - PHX. Continental just released fares through Dec. 26. Dec. 25 is over 400 and Dec. 26 is over 600. Yikes. I think I'll take a chance and wait. There's always Southwest, and unfortunately they won't post their fares probably until August. I'll keep watching.