Flight prices drop?

[WillowRain]

Anyone think flight prices will drop in the next month?

 

[zoo2tycoon]

You probably need more information- where and when you are flying. Your crystal ball is as good as anyone else.

 

[NYCgrrl]

View some of the airfare historical price sites such as ATPCO and faredetective.com

HTH

 

[WillowRain]

Ha, sorry. June 19th to July 10th. SFO to ATL

 

[sam_gordon]

View some of the airfare historical price sites such as ATPCO and faredetective.com

HTH

So I went to faredetective just to play. I'm missing something. I put in my departure & arrival airports and it gives me the historical charts. Hey, this is cool. BUT, it doesn't say if the prices are are bare bones carriers, or how far in advance of travel people bought the tickets.

 

[NYCgrrl]

So I went to faredetective just to play. I'm missing something. I put in my departure & arrival airports and it gives me the historical charts. Hey, this is cool. BUT, it doesn't say if the prices are are bare bones carriers, or how far in advance of travel people bought the tickets.

Now take the next step and compare a date's pricing with your favorite air carriers for the same time via a site like Kayak or Expedia ...you dinna think they'd make this easy did you?

 

[writerguyfl]

The current price for those dates shows about $280 round trip on United with one stop. That averages $140 for each direction. I'm not an expert on that route, but I do price transcontinental flights between South Florida and Southern California. For those, if I get something under $150 one-way, I feel like I'm got a good rate. Of course, every route is different, so you need to check it (more on that later).

If you must fly nonstop, you only have a few options. Those price out at $366 or $386. Personally, I'd take a one-stop itinerary to save $86 per person. But, other folks may feel differently.

I've found that the best way to determine the "normal" price for a discounted airfare is to check the same routes on surrounding dates. For US domestic flights, you almost never see fares that require a round-trip to save money. As such, searching for one-way fares is the best method.

I use the ITA Software Matrix. ITA is the company that powers Google Flight searches. (Google bought them years ago because they had the best product for retail airfare.) The ITA Matrix only shows fares. You have to go elsewhere to buy them. But, it's great for research.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Here's current (as of January 7, 2019) one-way fares between San Francisco (SFO) and Orlando (MCO) for June 2019:

And the return, in July 2019:

What these calendars tell me is that the cheapest fares from SFO to MCO would be about $110 or $120. And, a reasonable bargain would be somewhere around $150.

For the return, the best rates are also $110. Based on the multiple times that figure appears, the demand from Orlando appears to be less than the demand to Orlando. Similarly, if you're not flexible with your travel date, getting a fare for $150-160 would still be a reasonable deal.

As zoo2tycoon notes, there's a bit of guess work involved. Something major could happen and prices could drop or rise substantially. But, absent a major event that affects the economy (terrorism, airline bankruptcy, etc), I'd use $110 as a great deal and $150 as a reasonable deal for each one-way fare.

Personally, if the current one-stop flights on United work for the schedule, I'd book and not look back. If I had any flexibility with dates (particularly if I was booking multiple tickets), I'd look into departing a day early. Doing that brings the fare down to $226. And one of the options at that fare involves an overnight flight, which means you're still arriving in Orlando on June 19.

I hope some of that helps. Feel free to ask follow-up questions.

Added: I also priced Southwest for those dates. Their lowest fares are $220 in each direction ($448 round trip).

 

[Wild4Walt]

Lots of things to consider when booking:

• Day of week you are looking at the fares. Weird but if you look on at fares on Sunday afternoon during half time, it could be higher than when you check fares on Tuesday while on your lunch hour.
• The day of the week you fly can also make a difference, be flexible if possible.
• Right now, airfare can be high because it's post holiday pricing ( although Southwest did announce a sale yesterday ) In the old days, 8 to 10 weeks out used to see better fares released. You may be able to confirm that using the fare detective.

I wouldn't give up yet, but I'd agree, airfare around 280.00 isn't that bad.

 

[sam_gordon]

Now take the next step and compare a date's pricing with your favorite air carriers for the same time via a site like Kayak or Expedia ...you dinna think they'd make this easy did you?

So the chart is the AVERAGE cost for a given route on a given day? Let's say I want to fly ORD -> MCO in June. The chart says in June 2018, that flight was $529. So if I find a price for $450, I should jump? Wouldn't the price vary based on length of stay? Do they factor ULCC (which would swing the equation)?

 

[NYCgrrl]

So the chart is the AVERAGE cost for a given route on a given day? Let's say I want to fly ORD -> MCO in June. The chart says in June 2018, that flight was $529. So if I find a price for $450, I should jump? Wouldn't the price vary based on length of stay? Do they factor ULCC (which would swing the equation)?

I didn't get an average?!?

Maybe we pulled up a different search/tab within the website. I asked faredetective to pull up last year's fare for LGA to MCO r/t for a specific date and travel time and then put the same dates and flight times in with a year change into the next Expedia and JetBlue search. Came up with a different price by 10 dollar change for this year.

 

[AllesonWonderland]

I use the ITA Software Matrix. ITA is the company that powers Google Flight searches. (Google bought them years ago because they had the best product for retail airfare.) The ITA Matrix only shows fares. You have to go elsewhere to buy them. But, it's great for research.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Matrix has been really inaccurate for me lately. It's been my go-to for a long time, but for whatever reason the past few months it shows super low rates that don't show up anywhere else. Have you had similar issues?