November 2005 airfare is it too early?

[curlyjbs]

I'm days away from the 330 day mark to book my airfare. What kind of "deals" can I expect by booking this early?

curly

 

[dudspizza]

My suggestion would be to know what you think is a "fair" price. That fair price would be one that you can deal with when you buy. If you think a better deal will come, then wait. Typically, 6 months out or so you start to see some deals, at least in the MSP area, though great deals are few and far between here!

Duds

 

[Bill From PA]

I start monitoring rates about 6 months out using Travelocity and Orbitz. Prices will fluctuate wildly for quite a while but I get a sense of the range. About 2 1/2 - 3 months out you'll see the lowest price in the range or maybe one lower, then take it and stop looking! You'll probably lock in the lowest or near-lowest they offer and there's no sense beating yourself up if they go down another $10 later. Another thing (or 2). I'll check other weeks around my dates that are similar to mine, like the same day of the week leaving and returning to get an idea of exactly how many weeks out the best prices are offered. If you're going around a holiday, all bets are off. Post here and ask travelers who have flown then what to expect.

Bill From PA

 

[pumpkinboy]

If you want tix for peak times, you might just get the best deals at 330 days. For example, you want to fly the two most popular times over thanksgiving week: the airlines all know that they are definately gonna sell all those tickets, so there is no reason to discount them now or later. Having you buy your tix at 330 days may get you a better deal than booking later, as the airline will have use of your money for that much longer (more money they won't need to pay interest on which is a great thing for them).

In all honesty, unless you are booking frequent flyer tix for popular times, or you are booking on a discounter (say JetBlue or maybe Delta/Song, or SouthWest, where they sell the cheapest fares first), you are probably better off holding on to your money until later.

All this being said, we booked our tix for April school break at 330 days, but two of our four tix were frequent flyer awards. Still, I now wish we had held out for JetBlue to announce fares, as JetBlue would have cost about the same (in total for the 4 tix), and not used up our SkyMiles.

 

[DebbieB]

The big question is which airlines will be around in 330 days.