How soon do you buy airline tickets???

[bcarson]

We are planning on going in Oct of 2005 are dates are not set yet. How soon or late should we buy airline tickets. We drove in May of 2004 and this time we want to fly. I have never bought airline tickets before and I am clueless. Do they ever give a discount for buying in a group? My sister, her two kids, my parents and me an my family of 4 are going together. Any advice would be great! Also one more thing. I live south of Chicago from everything I have read it is cheaper to go to Indy and fly out. One other option is Gary. I was just wondering how hard it would be to meet up with my family at the airport though if we fly out of somewhere different then them?

 

[lsteadman]

for the dates I need. Sometime this works but sometimes fares do go lower. Its a crap shoot because you never known when "airfare wars" will cause prices to lower.

 

[tidoublegger]

I booked our R/T on JetBlue from Boston to Orlando the day the fares opened up. I booked 6/26/04 for our flight leaving in March of 2005. I was the first one to book on that particular flight and could actually pick whichever seats I wanted. THe best part is that for a nonstop R/T flight for $192 including taxes per ticket ($768 total). I checked out of curiosity today to see if the fares were dropping since Delta and others are dropping their prices. I was shocked to see that the fares are $1013 MORE than what I paid!!!!!!!!!!! So, the moral to my long, drawn-out post is that the sooner you can book the cheaper it might be!

 

[Liz]

I know from flying to Florida many times what's a good fare and what's a great fare. For us if it goes below $300 I start getting interested but anything below $250 I book. Check airfare every day (if you are as obsessed about it as I am!) When you see a fare that's reasonable for your area then grab it.

Booking airfare is the worst part of vacation planning because you never know if its going to go up again or down more!

As for meeting your family at the airport if you aren't all on the same flight, I don't think you would have a hard time finding each other. The Orlando airport really isn't confusing (in my opinion). You could arrange to meet by the luggage pick up or by the car rental area (some nice places to sit and wait down there). Or if your arrival times are vastly different you could meet at your resort perhaps. I don't know what arrangements you are making to transport everybody from the airport to your hotel.

Have fun and wish you the best of luck in your planning!

 

[DebbieB]

I just bought a ticket for the beginning of March this week. Air Tran $186, PIT/MCO. I was hoping for lower but was worried that people who are afraid of USAir might start snapping up the tickets. I only paid $135 for last month (bought 10/1).

 

[disneybride96]

Anyone experienced with Thanksgiving flights? We want to fly down on Thanksgiving day 11-24-05 and back on 12-6-05. We are ususally off season vacationers, but doing something a little special this time. We know that Thanksgiving is the busiest weekend, but hope that flying on the holiday itself would be better. Currently flights to MCO are $59, but $99 for our dates. But compared to $249 the Saturday after T-day, I think the $99 might be a good price. Thanks for any input!
(BTW....we fly IND to MCO)

 

[Kimberlyfamilyfv]

I paid a fabulous rate on american airlines for my flight May 22, 2005 - May 29, 2005 We got a rate of 146.70 per ticket. This is bloomington, il bmi to orlando mco.

I was going to book at the rate of 166 and change about a couple days before but held off. When I went back on line to book it went down to 146.70. I was jumping up and down because I was so astounished about the price. My tickets were discount by over 100 dollars. I saved a grand total of 400 dollars off the regular priced tixs.

I am especially happy because now we do not have to drive to indianapolis which is about 4 hours away. We get to drive 40 minutes to the bloomington airport. Yeah me.

I booked our airfare on november 19 for our may trip. The rate I got was only available for about 4 days. Since then it has went up to 188 plus change.

 

[shafke]

We booked out airfare back in Aug for out Apr trip. From the time we started planning the trip in Jul to Aug the fares went up a lot for the days we wanted to travel so we had to modify travel dates to get a lower fare. I check today and the fares for the same flights that were are booked on have doubled. Granted we are going during a period when schools are off here but the flight down is still only half booked and the fare for this is now showing as $300 + $200 for the flight back. If we had waited to book, we would be driving.

 

[DVC-Don]

We fly Southwest so we book about 5 months in advance. Then if the price goes down we rebook and get a credit for the next trip.

 

[beccasmom]

We ususally start looking 6 months or so before a scheduled trip. However, we just booked on USAirways for a trip in February because the fares were $116 round trip each! I am not thrilled about using USAirways because of the issues surrounding them generally and Philadelphia specifically, but I have used them for many years and decided to just go for it. The tickets were bought with a credit card, so at least we are protected that way. No sense worrying about the things we can't control!