When To Buy Airfare

[Catira]

It's killing me to wait to buy our tickets for October. They have been all over the map the last couple weeks (I am torturing myself with a daily Kayak alert and the graph looks like an earthquake hit!) We are waiting to have the money firmly in the bank from the tax refund, but even if that came tomorrow I have to wait until the middle/end of May to book something unrefundable because we won't know DS14's fall competition schedule until then.

I asked my BIL, who works in management for a big airline, about waiting vs. buying and he could only tell me it was likely fares will rise based on oil prices. I suppose the airlines will adjust if no one books at the higher prices, so maybe waiting it out until May/June will see some shakeout. Plus Southwest will release their dates for that time in a few weeks. Wish I could have bought tix from Phoenix at $220 last week ...

PHXscuba

I am in the same situation. Our trip isn't until Oct.22 and I am waiting for Southwest and Jetblue to post the October flights. I can book now from Austin, Tx to Orlando for $300 I keep wanting to book NOW, but my friends want to wait for S.W. and JetBlue to compare prices.

 

[csmommy]

I used yapta.com (a website another Dis'er on this thread generously shared). It tells you whether flights are predicted to go up or down. For my dates in August, it was predicted that they'll either go up or stay the same (don't remember which). Moral of the story-- buy when they're a price you can live with (even far in advance) and then stop checking the airline sites!
We got Airtran for $77 pp per way, flight times not terrible. (A stopover in Ohio, but we don't have to change planes, thankfully)

We live in Weschester County too. Pleasantville. Great price on your tickets. We went with Jetblue non-stop b/c we fly in at 9:00AM (have the whole day) & fly out 5:00PM for under $900.

 

[jhaig]

We're watching flights round trip from Elmira, NY, to Orlando RT thru Philly. The lowest we can find in $308. Last year was $160. Just don't know if $308 will be as low as it goes.

 

[klacey1]

We live in Weschester County too. Pleasantville. Great price on your tickets. We went with Jetblue non-stop b/c we fly in at 9:00AM (have the whole day) & fly out 5:00PM for under $900.

We live up in North Salem. I love Pleasantville-- I worked at a restaurant there one summer in college.
We wanted to fly out of White Plains/Jet Blue, but by the time we booked for late August, prices were crazy and the times weren't ideal. LaGuardia isn't too far away, though.

 

[csmommy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41888401/ns/travel-news/?GT1=43001

airfares went up again, might want to read this................

Klacy1 - I hear you about the cost of flying out of HPN, but we can get family to drive us if we go out of HPN, can't say the same for LaGuardia, JFK or Newark!

Love the land up in North Salem, great soccer fields!

 

[Maybelle]

In doing research specific to Southwest Airlines, I believe the best flight are had about 9 weeks out -- outside of major holidays. So today being March 2 and looking at PVD -> MCO May 10 and return on May 17 they are in the range of $77 to $99/each way. If I look at one-way from PVD to MCO the consistently under $100 rates begin about April 12 and go through June 8 so that would mean from 14 weeks out until about 5 weeks out. I need a flight early August and I plan to look more carefully beginning late April or early May.

I have found this to be the case too, in general...but with oil prices so high and only continuing to climb, I am thinking that may not be the case right now. I will be looking PVDtoMCO and back as well for the same timeframe.

 

[juliebean]

What is your plan if tickets don't come down? Drive? Or look to fly out of another airport?

We try to be very flexible with airports, when you are buying 5 tickets it is worthwhile to drive an extra hour to Philadelphia if it means saving a $100 a ticket (times 5).

 

[bamagirl@hrt]

My family is heading out west this June - to Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton NP. I watched fares closely, trying to guess any pattern. We live very close to our local airport, but it was $1000 more than flying out of an airport 3 hours away. We finally saw a fare we were comfortable with, flying out of the airport 3 hours away. It was just over $1900 for 4 of us. I booked those flights the end of January.

WELL, today our local airport announced that Frontier Airlines is starting nonstop flights to Denver, with connections to other cities. Their service begins two days before we leave. Yep, now we could fly from our local airport for $300 less than what I paid. Makes me feel but what can you do at this point? Definitely not worth the $600+ to change.

Hope you have better luck getting your ideal airfare!

 

[jhaig]

I finally bit the bullet out of fear that prices will go even higher. Paid $280 out of Elmira(NY) to Philly then on to Orlando for late August. Almost double last year, but still reasonable. I just didn't want to get stuck having to pay even more. Now the challenge is to not check prices again until we leave.

 

[ChiCat]

We bought our airfare today for Disney because of this thread. I was afraid prices would keep rising. I saw it as low as $185 but he ended up buying them for $474 total with fees for both tickets. I'm okay with that. I'm just so excited to be going!

 

[DCLbrideSept2009]

Book flights for my DD and her friend for June yesterday finally... today those same flights are $9 more each... not a big deal, but if it's a trend and if I had to wait any longer, ugh...