Best day/night to purchase airfare?

[mommy2emily]

Is there a better time of day or certain day of the week to purchase airfare?

 

[scootch]

I usually find them on tues/wed. I have heard varying times, even gotten up at 3am(or whatever time I read) but didn't find that as successful.

 

[Mrs D]

Tuesday and Wednesday! Those are the cheapest days to fly too!

 

[Dacky619]

Tuesday and Wednesday! Those are the cheapest days to fly too!

Agreed. If you watch airfare for a week or two you'll probably see prices go up on Thurs/Fri and then drop back down on Tuesday. But there is no rule, prices change all the time. Best thing to do is to keep checking.

 

[pigletto]

Yep.. Tuesday and Wednesday.
I always seem to check a few times during the week and when we are waiting to buy airfare and this seems to be the pattern with most airlines.

Do a search for Bing Fare Predictor. It is a incredibly useful (and free) tool for watching the prices of flights.

 

[antmaril]

I agree with the others - Tuesday or Wednesday. I read recently that 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday is the best time to buy. It's also cheaper to fly on Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

[princessbride6205]

Agree. I book hundreds of tickets each year for work, and Tuesday afternoons do often see a price drop. Sometimes it's negligible, but yesterday I had one drop $250 from where it was on Friday!!

 

[ZooKeeper13]

Yesterday my flights for November went up a lot! From $149 to $282 going down & from $119 to $168 coming home. They're still at those prices today also. Luckily I booked early!

 

[Darcy03231]

For my recent trip I got the best prices early Saturday mornings (around 7-8 am). Previous years I would have said Tuesday or Wednesday, but this year there really didn't seem to be a big drop on those days (we flew Southwest).

 

[princessbride6205]

Obviously price drops depend on a number of factors. How far out your date is, how many seats are booked on the plane already, the price of competing airlines on that route, etc.

This week, I ended up having flights that dropped on Tuesday afternoon, drop again Wednesday! These are flights that are 4 weeks away. I guess Delta realized they weren't going to fill that flight in a few weeks with a price of $555! I got it for $304.

Another tip - if you are booking for more than 1 or 2 people, price the tickets for 1 person and then do another search for the full number of people in your group. This is a strategy for flights that are almost full, around holidays, or sometimes your tickets just push it over into the next price level. For example, if I could get one ticket for $300, but when I type in that I need 3, the price jumps to $350 each. Once you've crossed into that next price level, the airline will charge you that for all 3. But if you're willing to book separately, you can get the first ticket for the lower price and just pay the higher price on the remaining tickets. I play around and see if I can get two tickets for the lower price - or however many you need - keep plugging in different numbers to maximize the number of tix at the lower cost. This works for us as we are okay to have one of us sitting separately and one of us with DD. And sometimes you may get lucky and will be able to be seated together anyway!