So when would you buy airfare?

[zulaya]

With fuel prices skyrocketing, I am faced with more uncertainty of when to buy airfare. That and more airlines are in trouble.

I have a trip to ATL in January. Hopefully MCO later in 2006. Already prices are higher than I usually expect by about $50 per person, roundtrip. I know demand makes fuel costs soar, but unfortunately, my income hasn't risen as fast as the demand for oil.

Will prices moderate? I know as well as everyone on this board that flight prices are like the stock market, but I am seeing things sitting still and moving up, not really much fluctuation on the downside.

Could I drive? I suppose. Being from MN, that's a 2 day drive on each end of the trip though. And we are talking wear and tear on my vehicle of an additional 3000 miles, but the cost of fuel round trip would be only $350. If rented a car from home, I probably would still approach what it would cost to fly the family down.

Any discussion?

 

[curiouser]

I understand your pain, and I wish I had an answer!

We're looking at airfare for our upcoming Christmas trip (12/23-1/2) and the prices are astronomical. But the alternative of driving with high gas costs ($2.69 as of this morning) plus the fear of horrible winter storms at that time period has me worried.

Unfortunately, even with the high gas prices, its not effecting those who want to fly or even drive to their travel destinations so travel companies aren't suffering enough to want to lower prices, IMO.

 

[antmaril]

I just booked our airfare (Spirit Air) this morning for a trip to WDW in January -- $211 per person for a non-stop from Detroit. That is a decent fare and I was worried the fares will only go up. I'm pretty happy with this fare.

 

[Nik's Mom]

I was wondering the same thing. We aren't going until August 06 though, so we still have plenty of time. But really, when is the best time to book? The fares are getting worse.

 

[Brian Noble]

I think if you can get within $50 pp of airfares that you considered "good deals" last year, it's probably worth taking. I just went through this excercise, and even the discount airlines all seem higher this year than last.

Fuel is higher, leisure travel is picking up. Just as the WDW hotel deals have dried up relative to past years, I think some of those bargain basement fares might too. There are exceptions---this September seems to be rock-bottom based in part on memories of last year's horrible weather. But based on watching the Resorts and Transportation boards, people are generally paying more both for hotels and flights to WDW.

 

[ddisneymom]

I booked our airfare with jet blue for Feb. was looking around and as soon as I heard the fares were going up I booked in a matter of 1 day the fares went up 5o.oo. 190.00 round trip. not bad ! BOOK NOW!!!!

 

[JoeCathyAngelina]

When I bought Airfare.
Every day for the past 5 months when I got on the web for some reason; I took a minute to check the airfares across the board at priceline or orbitz. I decided back in March when I booked the Sheraton Vistana for the 1st week of April '06; if we had to spend more than $500 for the 3 of us to fly down, we'd drive down to WDW in April '06. Sunday night I checked the orbitz page for the dates we need and the rate was $496 total for the 3 of us. I booked it right there on the spot, paid, reserved our seats, got the email with the tickets attached and printed out the tickets all in less than 15 minutes. We're flying Song, 1st week of April '06, from Boston to MCO for $496...No Big Deal.
That's when I bought Airfare, Good luck all,
Joe

 

[MNSusan]

Hi zulaya!

I book anytime the airfare from MSP is under $200. We're looking at another trip in early December and NWA will get us there for $188. SunCountry, AirTran or Midwest might end up being a little less, but generally speaking <$200 is when I buy.

 

[dzneelvr]

I'll be booking my airfare with TMA from Rockford, Illinois the minute the June/July dates show up on their website. We get @$79 per person each way and I'm not going to quibble about a few bucks. WDW here we come !

 

[cdpa4d]

I always book our airfare immediately when Southwest opens their fares for our travel dates. I know this sounds silly, but because Southwest is usually the cheapest, most other carriers will drop their fares to match, or even beat Southwest's fares. I guess it's a competition thing! This is just what I've noticed and we always travel out of Indy. It may be different coming from other airports.

 

[CarolA]

Your trip to Atlanta is the toughie here!

I think the only airlines you really have a good choice of are Delta and NW (does AirTran fly from an airport near you?)

Having flown into Atlanta a lot, I can tell you it's just an expensive city. You are not going to see many of the $69, $59 airfares and if you don't have AirTran you won't see them at all. So waiting too late will cost you. I booked a trip out of here recently for November. It was $196 when I first looked $226 when I finally did book, and I just checked for fun $266!!! I bought this ticket last Thusday so that $40 in a week!

What is the Atlanta ticket running right now?

 

[Bill From PA]

For the first time ever I bought our airfare 330 days out, as soon as they came out. We wanted an early direct out of PHL and got a USAir flight that will have us at MCO before 10 am. I paid $181, the second cheapest we've ever paid out of PHL and now we couldn't get what we wanted for less than $242. I usually wait until 3 months out and get the lowest rate then. The fear of fuel prices got me in the game early and it seems to have paid off.

Bill From PA

 

[Dislifer]

When I bought Airfare.
Every day for the past 5 months when I got on the web for some reason; I took a minute to check the airfares across the board at priceline or orbitz. I decided back in March when I booked the Sheraton Vistana for the 1st week of April '06; if we had to spend more than $500 for the 3 of us to fly down, we'd drive down to WDW in April '06. Sunday night I checked the orbitz page for the dates we need and the rate was $496 total for the 3 of us. I booked it right there on the spot, paid, reserved our seats, got the email with the tickets attached and printed out the tickets all in less than 15 minutes. We're flying Song, 1st week of April '06, from Boston to MCO for $496...No Big Deal.
That's when I bought Airfare, Good luck all,
Joe

Joe-I too am flying Song in December. I booked our flights in May and since then they have changed the flight times on us twice. Have you had any flight time changes???

 

[Nik's Mom]

I'm not going until late August 06 and I'm wondering if I should book at the 330 day mark, or wait until it gets closer to my dates. I'm flying from LAX, so if I see fares at the $300 mark, I may just jump on them.

 

[mjh8955]

We are going 10/29 to 11/5 out of Indianapolis, 7 of us. I watched airfare almost every day for the last 6 months. Last weekend we bought our tickets from AirTran, $166.90 non-stop, round trip. Thought we got a great deal. Today I checked AirTran just for the heck of it and the airfare had dropped $40. I'm going to try and get a credit but since they are non-refundable tickets I doubt if they will do anything for us. I told my husband to buy them last weekend because I had just read about fuel prices going up. I wish we had waited another week. If you are flying out of somewhere with lots of choices I would wait as long as possible before locking in airfare.

 

[cdpa4d]

We are going 10/29 to 11/5 out of Indianapolis, 7 of us. I watched airfare almost every day for the last 6 months. Last weekend we bought our tickets from AirTran, $166.90 non-stop, round trip. Thought we got a great deal. Today I checked AirTran just for the heck of it and the airfare had dropped $40. I'm going to try and get a credit but since they are non-refundable tickets I doubt if they will do anything for us. I told my husband to buy them last weekend because I had just read about fuel prices going up. I wish we had waited another week. If you are flying out of somewhere with lots of choices I would wait as long as possible before locking in airfare.

Hi Neighbor. The airfare price drop was kind of unexpected. My airfare through Southwest was the same as yours and, at the time, I thought it was a good deal. I called Southwest yesterday and they could not adjust my airfare because there were no more seats available in the class of service I had already booked. Basically, the discounted seats were all gone. The Agent told me the same holds true for anyone else on our flight. We are going Oct. 22nd - 29th.

 

[siobhan1997]

I bought our airline tickets for Mar 06 in June. As soon as they became open. I am glad I did because each leg has gone up already. My car rental has been booked since March 05

 

[uva185]

I never book more than 30 days in advance. There are a couple reasons of doing so. First, airlines make many schedule changes. Booking early may ulimately criticaly alter your travel plans if there is a schedule change. If there is a schedule change even as little as 15 minutes you are allowed to cancel or change your reservation free of charge. Second, airlines usually run fare sales closer to the travel dates. For expample US Airways will run fare sales for departing travel 30-60 days in advance. If the fare drops from the time of purchase you usually dont get cash back but instead get airline credit.

The reason fares can jump overnight in price is a little tricky to understand but here's how it works. A full fare ticket costs 1,000, the airline designates that as a Y ticket. Then it will sell discounted tickets which have different rules (21 day advance purchase, 14 day, 7 day, and 3 day and some other rules) There are also limited amounts of each type of ticket. Lets say you want to book a flight 45 days in advice, eventhough you qualify for the 21 day advance fare it may be sold out and therefor you would have to pay for the 14 day ticket. Each of these types of tickets are given a letter to corospond to it. There is a website that allows you to check availability of each fare. Go to http://flyaow.com/classcwt.htm enter your flight info. Under each flight you will see a bunch of letters with a number next to each letter. That tells you how many seats are left for that fare. (9 actually means at LEAST 9)

I hope I explained this well. I know its confusing.

 

[j's m]

I always buy our airfare when we definitely decide we're going. Each year we debate it, and for the last 6 years go every November during Jersey week. We've booked at various times, from April to August. This year I booked in April for the last price as last year $ 530 for 3 of us PHL to MCO. I thought that was a great price with gas going up. I couldn't wait for SW to open their fares, I couldn't wait to book WDW since the week we goes fills up fast.

SW opened up their fares, they were the exact same price as I booked. Then today I see an internet special for them, $ 350 instead of $ 530. It makes me ill to see that low a price. But with my luck if I had waited, it might have gone up $ 180 instead of down.

So go with what you're comfortable with, accept a good price or hold out for a great price with the idea that you might not get a great price. Good luck.

 

[DonnaL]

I just booked the return leg of our December trip yesterday on SW returning to PHL for $79 pp. I booked the flight down in mid July for $79. With taxes, etc. it's $176.90 rt. Now I just have to keep checking for a sale.........hopefully, they'll still have a systemwide even with the gas prices.
I'm sort of banking on the fact that not a great number of people travel from
the 10th-17th December.....most holiday travelers won't be traveling until at least the 20th.