Is it cheaper to fly in/out on certain days?

[McKelly]

I am just curious if it is cheaper to fly in on a Friday or Saturday or leave on a certain day? Do you guys book your hotel before you buy your airline tickets? If you find a cheaper airfare by leaving a different day, +/- a day, is it easy to change your hotel reservations? Thanks for any tips!

 

[clkelley]

Most airlines have cheaper fares on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Or at least it seems that way to me.

Carol

 

[safetymom]

Weekends are usually more expensive. Middle of the week is the best.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Keep in mind that the airlines practice something called "yield management" whereby they try to maximize the revenue on each flight, based on predicted demand.

That means that for routes that are primarily flown by business travelers, it's often easy to get heavily discounted tickets on Saturdays, when demand from business travelers is limited. But for leisure routes, the demand for seats tends to be high on weekends when many people begin and end their vacations.

As clkelley noted, Tuesday and Wednesday are good days for cheap fares. Some airlines have fares that are only available on certain days, such as Tuesday and Wednesday.

Most flights have inventory at various different fares. When one fare category sells out, there are only seats at available in a higher fare category.

 

[mill4023]

Any other opinions on this?

Does this seem to be true with Southwest also?
Do they have more low fares available during the weekdays?

I want to make my room reservations soon, but I'm waiting for SW to release fares for March/April since the fares are all pretty high right now. If my chances of getting cheaper tickets is better by flying mid-week, I might make my room reservations with that in mind.

 

[branv]

It's interesting that you'd ask about Southwest, b/c I noticed something about their Thurs./Fri. prices from the one route I was checking.

Curious, I checked it on other weeks throughout the months, and it was all the same. Flying out on Thurs or Fri was $50 more expensive each way vs. flying out on Wed or Saturday. Of course, this was pre-Katrina gas issues, so who knows how that has effected their rates.

 

[mill4023]

I just spent a little time looking at the fares on Southwest over the next couple months. I'm looking at Portland, OR to MCO.
Their lowest fares for that route are the Internet One Way fares for $99. Not all dates still have those available, but there are some available on every day of the week. It does look like the weekends book up a little sooner than weekdays, but it's hard to tell for sure.

 

[TAKitty]

For our trips I looked at the airlines I wanted to use and just did random day checks on their websites. I found that on one airline it was much cheaper to travel during the week (Tues.-Thurs). This also included coming home on one of those days. I found that the other airline Friday wasn't a bad day but coming home on a Monday was very expensive. You really just need to see. I booked my hotel first and ended up having to cancel one day on the end and book another day at the beginning of my trip. For this summer I guessed our stay to book. I will probably cancel a couple of days, but I would rather have them booked then not be able to get a room.

 

[liamandcaili]

We changed our dates this past April because of the cost of the flight. We originally planned to stay Sunday-Friday, which would have cost nearly $400 per person. We changed to Wednesday-Monday and cut the flight cost in half. You just have to be persistent...try checking some of the travel sites for flexible dates. That might give you an idea about what you could save if you fly out Tuesday rather than Saturday, for example.