When to buy March 2023 plane tickets?

[maui2k5]

We (me, wife, girls 11/13) ran into the dreaded COVID roadblock 12 hours before our flight to Orlando in late July and had to reschedule our trip to Spring Break (March 2023).

Being that I have not flown to Orlando in March in over 16 years (when we got married at WDW), I am wondering when to buy plane tickets. We are north of Houston and have limited Southwest options out of George Bush (IAH) and more Southwest options out of Houston Hobby (about 30 min further away than IAH). We have also not flown SW in well over a decade so not as familiar with that airline recently. We usually fly United and prices are currently sky high ($600-800 round trip each!)

SW drops the flight availability for our March trip on Sept 8th and I am considering buying refundable plane tickets on Sept 8th in the event United offers better prices later on.

Thoughts?

 

[rwdavis2]

When? When you are comfortable with the price. There is no predicting airfare. But refundable tickets are one way to go. We did this for a trip to Italy this fall and already cancelled once and rebooked saving a couple thousand dollar.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We have family in your area. They usually fly out of Hobby on SWA.

Do you have a SWA card? There are good bonuses out there (we got 100,000 miles for DH last year). I've had one for years. We rarely pay for tickets except the tax.

I book as soon as the window opens on SWA. I then watch the flights and so far in the past couple weeks have gotten about 28,000+ points back for just paying attention! With SWA, you just go in and rebook the same flight.

Good luck!

 

[sponica]

We booked our SW fares the day they dropped for our Spring break (last week in February). I checked the fares today for the heck of it, the only fares available are anytime at 1000 per passenger for a roundtrip fare.

I'd get those fares on whatever airline settled as early as possible.

 

[DeeBee3]

I'd say get them sooner rather than later. I made the mistake of NOT buying when first published and now 2 months later, fares are about $200 higher. I'm in a spot where I don't know if they will ever have a random sale or reduction or if I just go with the idea they will get higher.

 

[maui2k5]

I'd say get them sooner rather than later. I made the mistake of NOT buying when first published and now 2 months later, fares are about $200 higher. I'm in a spot where I don't know if they will ever have a random sale or reduction or if I just go with the idea they will get higher.

Which airline did you book with?

 

[DeeBee3]

Which airline did you book with?

 

[DeeBee3]

Which airline did you book with?

JetBlue is who we usually use.

 

[Cheburashka]

I book as soon as they come out, because with the legacy airlines (American, Delta, United) prices rarely go down. Southwest is a different animal, but I rarely fly Southwest because I like assigned seats and I never felt their customer service was all it was cracked up to be. Since you do like Southwest, in your shoes I would look at Southwest and United as soon as they're both open for your dates, and see which is cheaper for a regular economy (not basic economy) ticket. Then I'd book the cheaper airline right away. I wouldn't pay extra for refundable unless I was on the fence about taking the trip at all. Most airlines allow penalty-free changes and cancellations these days (check your airline's policies). Don't assume Southwest will be cheaper. The days of it always being cheaper than the legacies are over.

 

[maui2k5]

I actually don’t like or dislike Southwest mainly because I have not flown the airline in over 10 years - we usually fly United out of Houston. Right now round trip tickets to MCO are running about $600-700 economy each on United for reasonable times of day for March 2023. Double the price that I was hoping for…

 

[Kmedders]

I actually don’t like or dislike Southwest mainly because I have not flown the airline in over 10 years - we usually fly United out of Houston. Right now round trip tickets to MCO are running about $600-700 economy each on United for reasonable times of day for March 2023. Double the price that I was hoping for…

Yes - I am looking at tickets from DFW to MCO for March - right now Southwest and American are over $4,000 for 4 people. Insane. I can't imagine they are going to drop in half. I'm considering either flying into Tampa or just driving. I can drive round trip with a hotel for around $1,000 usually. So I don't ever fly unless I can get all four tickets under $2,000.

 

[sam_gordon]

The thread should have ended after the second post.