How far in advance do you make your air reservations

[animallover]

We are planning to go sometime next December for our first WDW trip as a family and were trying to figure out how far in advance do you usual make your air reservations for your trip. There will be 4 of us, so the cheaper the better.

 

[Aisling]

I start looking as soon as the airlines accept bookings. With some airlines, it's 6 months ahead, with others it's over 300 days ahead.
When I see a fare below $200, I book it, and in the past 4 years, it has been an average of 5 months ahead of my travel date.

I'll also be flying next Dec. 2005, and I wish I could start looking now, but the airlines haven't opened the dates yet. I'm obsessive about finding the best web specials on my favorite airlines, and I've always gotten what I wanted, money-wise and flight times-wise. It's like my hobby, so much fun to save money!

 

[poohkinandpiglet]

I only book them a few months ahead but I'm usually using FF miles for my vacations.

 

[ladydancer]

I usually will start looking at the prices when they allow. Go to the airlines websites and travelocity and sign up for there emails. They will email you there deals. This way you'll know when there has been a price drop.

I noticed this year the deals for Dec. started coming in Aug.

 

[ILoveWDW2003]

I believe it is only possible to get rates at 330 days, no sooner than that.

 

[Chicago526]

Well, you can't book the major airlines until 330 days of your RETURN date (so you can book a round-trip ticket) but at that point, the haven't put anything on sale yet. Find out the average price for your market (mine is about $250, so anything $220 or less is a good deal, less than $200 is a steal!) and jump on it when the price drops. Just be carefull not to wait so long that the flights sell out, then you're going nowhere fast! Usually you'll see sale fares pop up about 4 to 5 months prior to your travel dates.

The big exception is if you're traveling over a major holiday like Thanksgiving or X-mas. Then, just book the flights as soon as they open for purchase. The odds of a sale are low, and if you wait, they WILL be sold out for sure!

 

[clkelley]

Same here, I start looking as soon as we firmly decide we're going and what our dates are. And when the fare I like shows up I jump on it.

Our fares are pretty standard at $210, but have gotten as low as $138. If I see it drop to $160 or less, I jump on it. Depending on the trip, we won't pay the $210, we just drive. The only time I've paid the $210 is when it was just hubby and myself and I had enough miles for one FF ticket. Paying $210 for two people didn't seem bad.

In May to keep our fares low, I took different flights than the rest of my family. They only had 3 seats at the lower price on the direct flight, so I took an earlier flight that had a connection in Atlanta for only $5.00 more. I got there about 45 minutes ahead of them and had the luggage pulled and the towncar driver ready to go by the time they arrived at baggage claim.

Now that Independance Air has moved in, I'm hoping they will keep the prices on our commuter flights with Delta low. I guess now I'll be checking both Delta.com and flyi.com

Carol

 

[llij]

I was checking for cheap fares this last March for our December trip. Once I found one, I booked. Now, Independence air is flying out of Dulles and the fares are dropping. Great news! We might have to take another trip back to the World sooner than we thought with all of these great fares!