How far in advance do YOU buy airline tickets?

[SpaceTraveler]

Did you know that you can actually shop too early for airline tickets?

It turns out airlines don’t start releasing cheaper seats until 3-4 months before departure for domestic travel and conversely 4-5 months before international travel. Always check Tuesday after 3pm for cheapest fairs and Wednesday to Wednesday are usually cheapest travel times.

I found 90 days in advance is perfect for purchashing tickets.

I work in the travel industry and confirm this as well. Airlines generally slowly raise their prices throughout the week. Mondays are when they check seat availability and determine how many more tickets they need to sell. Tuesdays are when the lower prices to sell those tickets go into effect. As a general rule, book air travel on Tuesday evenings and avoid flying on Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays.

 

[Carolynleanne]

Usually we book 6-8 months in advance

 

[ourpartyofsix]

I've been wondering about this, as well. We're also out of the Midwest, heading to WDW the week after Thanksgiving, and right now airfare is around $400 per person, 2x as much as when we flew in 2010! I am going to wait at least until Southwest comes out with their schedule. Hoping to get more like $300 per person, if possible, though less would be amazing.

 

[Blue32]

Thanks for all the replies. I will keep a close eye on prices now then. I am not real comfortable waiting until weeks before so I may try to find something soon that falls in our budget. One advantage we have is that we are about an equal distance from Des Moines(IA), Milwaukee, and Chicago so we could really fly out of anyone that has the best price.

 

[kailuagirl]

I start looking as soon as I know when we want to go. We have gone the past 2 Thanksgivings and I have found that airfare is best around August for that time from where we are. I think you just have to keep checking everyday and as soon as you see a great price, buy it! Airfares are so expensive now and they go up so fast and never come back down. We were hoping to go next week and looked for 6 months and never got a good rate, so we aren't going, wahhhhh

Good luck getting a great rate!!

 

[Davids-Coco]

Usually opening week. I watch and check for price drops and make sure to do my guarantee credit thing if they drop.

 

[Blue32]

I LOVE Southwest! I bought my tickets last year almost six months in advance...and then probably changed them six more times when the prices kept dropping Granted they just racked up points instead of money, but I'm pretty sure I'll use them towards another flight.

So... how does Southwest work as far as rebooking? You can rebook for a lower price? Or do you have to keep buying new tickets or what?

 

[Isatricia]

So... how does Southwest work as far as rebooking? You can rebook for a lower price? Or do you have to keep buying new tickets or what?

You can rebook. Unless you purchased a refundable fare, you won't get a refund but will get a credit on a future flight. We use this technique all the time.

 

[rramstad]

I will give my anecdote, apparently I've been overanalyzing and/or didn't have my act together, saw a great fare last night, discussed with my wife and my mom, and went to book it this AM less than 10 hours later, and wham, it's gone, $40 more per ticket times five. Ugh!

This is for a flight about 45 days out. Normally I find right now is really the sweet spot, from 45 to 30 days out, but obviously July 4th is a major holiday and we're in an awkward spot where probably a lot of people are trying to get their plans together so flights are starting to fill up, hence the odd jump in price, probably.

Know what you want, and when you get it, take it!

 

[SeattleRedBear]

Good advice so far. I also use some airline price tracking services with alerts (bing travel). Also check the ticket change policy for airlines and rewards programs you use. I'm gold-level with Alaska Airlines and there's no service charge for itinerary changes, so typically I buy a ticket as soon as I have the dates figured out, then use <http://lmoffice.com/FlightTracker/> to track price changes on the purchased flight. Over the years, I've racked up a couple hundred dollars worth of credit (Alaska Air credits (not reimburses) the difference).

But the advice others have given about when to purchase is spot on.

 

[Isatricia]

Keep in mind when watching airline prices that when you use services like Expedia or Travelocity (and others), fares for Southwest will not come up. I think there are several others that do not use the same system as well. It has also been my experience that most travel agents will not look at Southwest either.

 

[brenda1966]

Know what you want, and when you get it, take it!

Too true!

I try to do a bit of homework in advance, see what flight times are available, look at other dates and see what the fare are so that I know if I'm seeing reasonable rates or good deals. I also take into account if I'm flying during a holiday or during a week where every school district in the area has spring break as the airlines know that demand will be high and flights will fill up faster and rates will be higher. Buying airfare is as much an art as it is a science.

 

[kayleigh83]

I can't speak from long experience since this is actually the first flight I arranged myself, but I had been periodically checking prices for non-stop flights for several months, and for a specific time range too. Two weeks ago I noticed that the price had dropped by around $300, so I snapped it up quick! That's for late July.

 

[Jennifer2983]

I bought my tickets for July in the beginning of March is that helps....I think they r cheaper that way anyways you have more choices on times and web fair

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[Beee]

A bit different for us as we fly from such a long way and only one airline flies direct to LA...We are going in December so I thought there would be no cheap flights so I booked last month when we had decided on the dates and it cost us $NZ7600 (approx $US5500). Turns out I should have waited a month and I could have saved a couple of thousand dollars admittedly that was via Hawaii so not direct to LA (we are stopping in Hawaii on the way home anyway) but for that kind of saving I would have sucked it up and spent a bit of extra time traveling....I knew this was going to happen but I just couldn't bear the thought of waiting potentially months to book only to find nothing cheaper had come up and prices had gone up for such a big trip. When we fly to Australia (which is only a 3hr flight and there are quite a few airlines competing for your $$) I am happy to wait until a couple of months out and just stalk the airline websites and jump on a deal when something comes up or delay the trip if there isn't a deal. I guess it really depends on what you are comfortable with doing and how much you've got invested in the trip - I wanted to get on with organising and booking other things and didn't want to do that until the flights had been booked so was willing to take a hit...still hurts and I'm wondering why on earth I looked (what we don't know doesn't hurt us!)

 

[torene03]

So... how does Southwest work as far as rebooking? You can rebook for a lower price? Or do you have to keep buying new tickets or what?

You can rebook. Unless you purchased a refundable fare, you won't get a refund but will get a credit on a future flight. We use this technique all the time.

Yes, rebooking with Southwest is pretty simple. In my case, both the flight there and back changed once, but after that only the flight there decreased. It was great to be able to rebook each part of the flight as the price dropped.

 

[rramstad]

For the curious, I'm going through a bit of a horror story with our attempt to go to Disneyland in July. We've been trying to find flights that work and aren't too expensive, and every time we settle on something, the price jumps, and something else is cheaper... but then we decide on that, and the price on that has jumped too. Now we've got Disneyland tickets jumping in price Sunday, just to make things REAALLY confusing and difficult. My wife is having to talk me off the ledge...

I think my mistake is having too many people in the loop. When I see something that I think works, I can't just buy it, I have to ask around and make sure it works for everyone. I probably should have gotten a more comprehensive calendar / set of guidelines so I could operate more independently.

Grrrr!

 

[lwilkison]

We are planning a trip from the midwest to DLR this fall(week after T-GIVING) and I am wondering when the best times to buy airline tickets are. I check multiple websites quite a bit but I am looking for opinions on when others have found their best deals for airfare. Thanks so much.

We are flying from Vancouver, BC, to Los Angeles, CA and we usually buy around 3 months in advance but start watching right as soon as we are thinking about going that way when we see the deals we can get our tickets for about $300 RT. We have been planning our trip since January 2012.

Good luck with the airlines and getting a deal...

 

[rramstad]

For the curious, my story has a happy ending, I managed to find a flight that works for my budget and only have to spend about an extra 1:30 travel time by accepting one stop with a 45 minute layover... Very relieved, but I could have had non stops if I had been better prepared about 10 days ago when I first started looking. If I had known what I wanted and what I was willing to pay for it, this would have been over in the first couple of days.