when to buy flight tickets

[Indynanny]

While reading here on the transportation board I see several ready to book flights as soon as their dates are released. My family (8 of us) will need SW flights for 6/14-6/19. Would you recommend I get them immediately or watch for the rates to go down, if they do?

 

[sam_gordon]

While reading here on the transportation board I see several ready to book flights as soon as their dates are released. My family (8 of us) will need SW flights for 6/14-6/19. Would you recommend I get them immediately or watch for the rates to go down, if they do?

I would recommend purchasing tickets when you can afford them AND then watch for the rates to go down. SW will issue a credit to each traveler if you notify them the rates have changed.

 

[jdb in AZ]

A recent study mentioned on NBC news said to book flights 3 mos out, and on a Tues afternoon because that's when the sales happen and different airlines price compare and drop their fares to match.

I can't guarantee that's totally the cheapest way (and have saved $$$ by booking earlier than that), but thought I'd pass it along. They also said not to wait til a week before your trip. duh.

 

[sam_gordon]

A recent study mentioned on NBC news said to book flights 3 mos out, and on a Tues afternoon because that's when the sales happen and different airlines price compare and drop their fares to match.

I can't guarantee that's totally the cheapest way (and have saved $$$ by booking earlier than that), but thought I'd pass it along. They also said not to wait til a week before your trip. duh.

There was another recent study by Orbitz (or was it CheapTravel.com?) that said 6 weeks out was the "magic" window, but that there were plenty of exceptions.

Bottom line is there IS no magic window. I personally have good luck purchasing a couple weeks after release, but that's on legacy airlines. I'm not naive enough to say that will work for everyone though.

 

[richmo]

This is one of those questions that doesn't have a correct answer. Sometimes its a good idea to get the reservation as soon as possible...Southwest seems to have a history of seats selling out, or at least showing sold out very early.

You do have that price insulation with Southwest that you can rebook if the price goes down, but keep in mind that any credit you receive back must be used (flown, not just booked) within one year from your original booking date.

 

[malibuconlee]

With Southwest I tend to look at other airlines since I can book with them further out than the Southwest window to get an idea where they are on price.

I found last year that fares were reasonable when first released then shot up a LOT a couple of months later, then came down about 2 months out maybe a little more. We ended up flying for spring break to FLorida when I found reasonable flight prices compared to the price when I first looked which was a few weeks after SW released those fares.

My flights for next spring break I booked 2 weeks ago when I found flights I could live with for the price. We are pulling our daughter out for 2 days of school to avoid traveling over Easter. Wed to WEd flights I found for $700 something, but paid a bit more in the $840 range for a better flight time for 3 round trips. Sat to Sat came up at over $2k for the three of us. The next monday the exact same flights I picked were up to $1455.

IN general I have an idea in mind of what I'm willing to pay to fly. It's more than a lot of people seem to get but we are in the middle and it's just more expensive to fly from here I have found. But when I find something reasonable I generally jump on it.

 

[DebbieB]

I bought my tickets for Oct 18-24 in early June. It's gone up several times since then. Some people say they drop about 4 or 6 weeks out but I don't think that works for Orlando where people tend to book farther in advance. It may work for the unpopular times - late flights to Orlando or early flights from Orlando but not for the more popular times.

 

[SweetieinVT]

Do some research on the airfare prices for the specific routes you want to travel, look at nearby airports as well, and then check out the prices available for you now.


I have been watching airfares to Orlando for a while so know what the best airfare is (plus there are tools online you can use to check historical airfares). Once we had picked our travel window I watched out for good fares. As soon as I saw a fare at the low point of what I had seen over the last two years, I checked the kayak tools and compared a couple of websites/airlines/airports/days in that vicinity. Once I saw we had a good deal, I booked the airfare, 8 months in advance of our April trip. If it was just two of us, I might have waited, but it's six of us, so I don't want to chance not getting the low airfare for all our tickets. Plus with young kids I don't want to be spread out throughout the plane.

 

[nhmommy]

With Southwest I find the 6 week window pretty spot on. But also search both 1 seat and 4 if there is a cheaper rate for 1 or more seats but not for all the seats you picked you can book them separately and get the better rate on at least some of the seats

 

[Dis_Dreamin]

I think the correct answer is...
It depends.

If you are traveling during a peak travel time, or a school break (spring/fall break), I wouldn't wait for that magical 4-6 week out window. We booked our flights for our upcoming trip the day they came out, if I had waited until even that same afternoon, the flights would have doubled in price and we'd be driving instead. 4-6 weeks out, and they were sold out.

My opinion is to go in with what you feel is a reasonable price to pay for the schedule you want, and if you see it, book it.

 

[dis_guy]

You know, the best advice I can offer is to just do the legwork. Start stalking the websites of the airline or airlines that you'll likely book with and start learning what the pricing "cycles" are like for the route you want to fly. Pay attention to when new dates are released, what the usual fares are, when they come down in price and when they start going up in price. Pay particular attention to the times of the year you're interested in.

For example, right now I'm waiting for fares to come up for our Nov 2015 trip. Yes, Nov 2015. Our best airline choice for where we live in western Canada is United, connecting through Houston.

Right now dates are up for nearly all of August 2015. That means I can think about booking sometime in December, but I'll still keep an eye on what the fares are doing in the meantime. If the current trend continues the fares will come out at around $1200 per person for a round trip. Yup that's 1200 bucks!

After a week or 10 days the prices will mostly be at the lowest rate for our dates, around $500 per person or even less. That's a good price for 4000 miles of flying. They'll stay like that for a couple of weeks and then start to creep up slowly until they're right up to where they started. A week or two before, if any seats are left, fares will be at a lower price again, but not for all travel days or even all flights, so doing this is risky, to say the least.

Eventually you get a feel for your route and even remember other potential routes if you see them often enough. A friend told me she was going to New York. I responded, "Oh, that's the 7 am United flight to EWR." She just stared at me, thinking that I must be nuts to memorize airline schedules for fun. The truth is that flight was an option for connecting to MCO so I made a point of noticing it when I was stalking my preferred flights.

Obsessive, maybe. My wife probably thinks so, but she doesn't complain when we consistently get rock bottom fares when we fly.

 

[Donna M]

Since you said you are looking at SW, I would book the day the fares are released. Maybe the fares will go down at that 'magic date" but I have never experienced that with SW into Orlando, either the rate goes up or the flight I want fills up. You can get a credit if they go down, but you're out of luck if they go up and you missed your chance.