Finding Cheapest Flight

[mom2AidanAndEli]

As everyone is, I'm trying to find the cheapest air fare! I know it will be Southwest. I had always heard you should book on Tuesday afternoons, but also heard recently that's not necessarily true. I check often--different days and different times of days.

Recently I had read something--and I can't remember if it was here or Facebook or where--about specific times of day that airlines typically put through their system updates with changes in airfares. It was certain hours of the day, maybe 4-5 different ones. Of course, I didn't mark it down when I saw it!

Has anyone else heard of such a thing? Or have any real suggestions on best days/times to be watching for changes?

 

[jec6613]

Wednesday morning - specifically for WN it should be about 2 AM CDT/CST. Your profile says MA, so assuming you're going out of Boston Logan, you should check Delta (DL) and JetBlue (B6) as well, as all three have a good presence on the route to MCO, and don't assume that Southwest is cheapest. All three airlines will have the lowest prices, on average, on Wednesday first thing in the morning. B6 and WN offer free checked bags, but if DL is $40 cheaper per person that advantage goes away.

Also, watch the fares over time to know about what you should be paying, before jumping on a fare sale and purchasing.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

How do you know Southwest will be the cheapest? It could very likely not be. You should check all airlines flying the route you want.

 

[mom2AidanAndEli]

Even though I'm in MA, I'm actually 20 minutes from the Providence airport so that's where we fly from. The only directs are Southwest and Jet Blue and, believe me, I check them all the time! JetBlue is consistently more expensive and has a lot less options as far as times to fly. So I'm 99% sure it will be Southwest. We could do Logan but that's about an hour away and nowhere near as easy as Providence! Unless the difference was really significant, we wouldn't want to deal with it. And in the past, honestly, Providence has always been cheaper anyway--or at least very, very close, making it not worth the hassle to go to Boston. But I'll keep an eye out on Wednesday mornings!

 

[rwdavis2]

Airlines have software that adjusts prices on a continuous basis throughout the day based on demand. There's no way to predict it.

 

[jec6613]

For my next WDW trip, I'm actually driving past two major airports to get to JFK to take my flight because the time and prices were good enough. An hour isn't actually that far to drive to an airport, so I'd seriously look at Logan, which is a much larger airport than Providence. You're also probably not far from Bradley, too, but Boston will pretty much always beat Bradley.

While airlines do have software that can constantly adjust prices, they usually don't adjust very often, as they then have to update all of the partners with new pricing - this is particularly true of airlines in alliances. However, as lower cost seats are purchased, it leaves only higher cost seats. What does happen on Tuesday night is additional seats are released back into the system, and as the available seats go up, prices go down as cheaper seats. Also, it's cheapest because most business travelers don't purchase on Tuesday and Wednesday - it's also cheapest to fly on Saturday for the same reason, as business travelers don't tend to fly on Saturdays, to the point where LaGuardia doesn't have its fence on Saturday.

 

[Heidi K]

When we flew Southwest recently, the very cheapest fare was the one released at 6 am on the day that they released their next "batch" of three months or so. I kept a close eye on prices after we purchased our tickets, and they only went up from there.

 

[mom2AidanAndEli]

For my next WDW trip, I'm actually driving past two major airports to get to JFK to take my flight because the time and prices were good enough. An hour isn't actually that far to drive to an airport, so I'd seriously look at Logan, which is a much larger airport than Providence. You're also probably not far from Bradley, too, but Boston will pretty much always beat Bradley.

While airlines do have software that can constantly adjust prices, they usually don't adjust very often, as they then have to update all of the partners with new pricing - this is particularly true of airlines in alliances. However, as lower cost seats are purchased, it leaves only higher cost seats. What does happen on Tuesday night is additional seats are released back into the system, and as the available seats go up, prices go down as cheaper seats. Also, it's cheapest because most business travelers don't purchase on Tuesday and Wednesday - it's also cheapest to fly on Saturday for the same reason, as business travelers don't tend to fly on Saturdays, to the point where LaGuardia doesn't have its fence on Saturday.

Trust me, I've done some research! If I fly Southwest out of Providence on the exact dates I want, right now my round trip would be $301 per person. If I take your advice and go to Logan and try JetBlue, it will be $432 per person, Delta will be $700 per person! Even going with Southwest bumps the price to $345 out of Logan. So not only is Providence MUCH more convenient, it's also cheaper. And flying on Saturday is actually more expensive. That's actually what has helped bump my price up! I'm now stuck doing Sunday to Saturday. If I had been able to do Thursday to Wednesday, it would be cheaper.

I know $300 is a good rate, but when I was looking at dates that were just a few days different, I was able to get it for $200 per person! Scheduling won't allow me to do that now. I was just hoping the times I do need might drop a bit. That's why I was asking if there were specific times I should be looking. I know the $300 is a good deal and that's probably what we'll end up with. Just hoping to shave it down to what I saw for other dates.

 

[jec6613]

I don't blame you, I'm quite averse to paying more for flights than I need to.

 

[ton80]

As everyone is, I'm trying to find the cheapest air fare! I know it will be Southwest. I had always heard you should book on Tuesday afternoons, but also heard recently that's not necessarily true. I check often--different days and different times of days.

Recently I had read something--and I can't remember if it was here or Facebook or where--about specific times of day that airlines typically put through their system updates with changes in airfares. It was certain hours of the day, maybe 4-5 different ones. Of course, I didn't mark it down when I saw it!

Has anyone else heard of such a thing? Or have any real suggestions on best days/times to be watching for changes?

We are flying out of BOS 6/19-6/26 (JetBlue) and I noticed that the prices dropped dramatically about 8-10 weeks before. Saved almost $200. pp... Check your dates on Kayak for 1 way and see what prices you get with the different airlines?

Good Luck.