How far in advance should you book tickets?

[westjones]

We know we want to fly to Orlando next March. DH says we shouldn't book tickets until less than 6 months before our trip.

Is this a good plan (wait 6 months), or do you think booking early gets you a better price. Right now the prices for March on NWA (we have $200 vouchers for each of us for them) are not as high as they appeared this year. We could get a flight for $283 each which would cost us $83 each after the vouchers. We did manage to get $200 flights this year on NWA but the window of that cheap fare was very brief (found it at 6:00 am one morning and by 7:30 am it was up again).

What do most of you do? Wait and hope for good fare? Or do you book early?

Thanks
DJ

 

[brentalex]

I generally have an idea of what I am willing to spend. When I find flights close to what I have in mind, I buy them. I usually start looking as soon as the flights are released, 330 days in advance for some airlines. For my flight next week, I bought the tickets last August. I caught a 2 days sale and bought 4 tickets for close to what 1 ticket had been going for. If you find something good, I would buy them because you never know if that price will be available again. The one big downside to buying early is that some airlines, especially Delta will make lots of schedule changes. The times you first had may not be the times you will eventually end up with.