When to purchase air???

[ls1222]

Typically when is the best time to purchase airline tickets? We are about 5 months away. Will it go up/down????????? If only we knew. Would it be better to wait ? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Bill From PA]

USAir is just beginning to show rates for the week we're going, 2/27 - 3/6 2004. They're terrible compared with the past, $252 and higher while we paid as little as $169 a few years ago, $223 last Nov. When I look at the same flights on the same days of the week, avoiding 'special' times around holidays, I'm seeing $223 when I look in the 4 - 6 month range, ie. Aug to Oct of this year. This will be my benchmark. I'll look several times a week but probably will not buy until the Sept. - Oct. range, 4 - 6 months out from our trip, UNLESS, prices drop to or near the $169 mark. I'll jump on that! Anytime from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31 I'll take $223 or less the first time I see it. If oil goes down, the airlines may be inclined to lower rates a little. Song Air just began operations in my neck of the woods, hopefully adding competition.

I'm afraid to wait much beyond the 4 month mark. As planes fill up, the price per seat can go through the roof. Last year we flew our daughters to Myrtle Beach for $165 RT. I looked a month out and the price was over $800!. USAIr will give you a voucher for the difference between your rate and a later rate if the rates go down. It must be used within a year on USAir flights or products.

To directly answer your question, I'd be checking every day now, especially if you don't know the history of price fulctuations in your market. I wouldn't go under 90 days, better yet, I'd look to buy in the 4th month out at the latest. Ask questions here specific to deals others have gotten from your airport. Good luck.

Bill From PA

 

[apagano]

You're probably not going to like this answer, but here goes:

The best time to purchase your airfare is as soon as you find a reasonable fare that you can live with. The problem is that you never know exactly when the cheapest possible fare is going to come. It could be 6 months in advance or 6 weeks. You can bypass an OK airfare thinking it will go down only to see it go up. Likewise, you can purchase what you think is a great fare only to see it drop even further just days later.

My May trip is a perfect example. I watched the fares for weeks hoping for a low price with no luck. I finally booked the best fare I could find two months in advance. It involves driving 60 minutes to a smaller airport and changing planes in Atlanta.

Guess what? Just this week, Southwest Airlines started a sale. If I had waited until now I could have booked non-stop flights at a much closer airport at a cheaper fare Now I'm stuck driving to Akron and changing planes! But that's the way the ball bounces.

My advice would be to pick a fare you think is reasonable, book it as soon as you find it, then don't look back. you'll drive yourself crazy! I know I have.

 

[Kajunswty]

you can't go wrong! Here's my secret.....

I always book one way instead of round trip, that way if one or the other has a better rate down the line I can switch to the lower fare without any problems. The way SWA does that is you get a credit for the difference and you have 1 year to use it. That's one reason I always try to fly SWA

 

[ls1222]

Thank you guys!!! I went ahead and booked on Continental (direct flight). It still makes me nervous because we are 5 months away but the two times we went to Orlando we paid about 40.00 more per ticket than this time.

 

[NotUrsula]

You have handicapped yourself by putting the cart before the horse. For the very best deals, you should approach with the strategy of making the dates fit the fare, rather than attempting to make the fare fit the dates.

The trick of really doing air travel on the cheap is NEVER decide the dates before you find the fare. You can ballpark it, of course, as in, "early summer", but it will almost always cost you if you lock in dates before you go looking for a good fare. At very least, try to plan to travel on the airlines' less-expensive days, typically Tu, Wed, Th, and Sat. Fri. afternoon or Sun. night will usually make your ticket more expensive, unless you are grabbing a last-minute special.

I have myself signed up for a number of fare notification services, and I find that Expedia's fare calendar is a really valuable tool for finding out what the best target dates are. I can't remember the last time we paid more than $160 for a domestic r/t vacation fare.

 

[Bill From PA]

NotUrsula,

Can't argue with your logic concerning getting the best airfare, but the plane tickets are only a part of the whole vacation package. I've found it better to nail nown the best room rate, then go for the airfare. There are only so many Dolphin rooms available at the Teacher's Rate and we need three this time, so I reserved three as soon as they became available. Now I'm fishing for airfare and I probably will not get rock bottom prices, but what I lose on plane tickets I'll make up in the difference between $129 and $250 + or whatever the 'usual' Dolphin rate is. This times three rooms, times 8 days. Since we're not going until Feb. of 2004, I'm still hoping that falling fuel costs and the competition of Song Airlines in my neck of the woods will drop prices below what we paid last Nov., $223 RT.


Bill From PA

 

[apagano]

For the very best deals, you should approach with the strategy of making the dates fit the fare, rather than attempting to make the fare fit the dates.

Sound advice for people with flexibility, but a lot of people don't have that. This is especially true if you need to get vacation dates approved at work. By the time you find the cheapest fare, memo your boss and get an approval, the fare could change. If you're retired, self-employed or have lots of vacation time to take that's one thing. But most people I know have very limited flexibility with travel dates because of their jobs, kids, etc.

 

[NotUrsula]

... to get than cheap flights. (There are some markets that are exceptions of course, but I don't live in one.) If you need to get from airport A to airport B without a lot of time wasted in layovers, your choices are relatively limited.

It does make sense to pay more attention to hotel prices with a large party/long trip than with a small/short one, and it also makes the most sense to do that if you are travelling at a busy time. Of course, that breaks the other cardinal rule of cheap travel: never go at a busy time!

I've always found it much easier to work the discounts on hotels than on flights, not least because hotel ressies can more easily be changed without losing a lot of money. There are what-- ~60,000 hotel rooms in the Disney area? Even if you are adamant about staying onsite, you have over 25,000 rooms at 22 locations to choose from and finesse into the budget. I will check on the schedule of major events before I book a flight though; don't want to roll into the middle of the Democratic Nat'l Convention looking for a cheap room, like someone I know did. (Obviously, a very apolitical someone!)

I've also found it easier to use point programs for hotels than for flights; the airlines are a real PITA about points. This year's 5-day stay at Swan for us will cost nothing; over two years, we accumulated enough Starwood points to get the room on redemption, and there are no blackouts for that at S/D. Last stay we were @ WL for $129/nt, the time before that, POFQ for $85/nt, and the time before that, BWV on purchased points. I can just about always find hotel deals I can live with, one way or another. In my market, anyway, good prices on flights are much harder to score.

 

[ls1222]

In our case, we are taking the children out of school and want a 10 day vacation. We need to have 2 full weekends included so that it will only be 6 days that our children miss. So, we needed to fly out on Friday and return Sunday. I paid 40.00 less a ticket than we did last year at the same time and 50.00 less than threee years ago (again at the same time). I was happy that it is a direct flight at great times as well. I think I could have went al little bit cheaper by waiting but it may not have been a direct flight. In our case, we must decide on our date first and everything else seems to fall into place.

 

[Aisling]

I always book the room first, usually more than six months ahead of time. Then I watch airfares until it gets close to 3 months until vacation. Even if the fares are high, they always come down, even if it's for a 0ne-day web sale. If you check daily, you will get a good fare. This has happened in my experience for 4 years in a row now, and my travel dates are always July 4th week, which is peak.
This time, 3 months from my travel time, air fares were a lot over $200. I knew they would come down. And they did, from a steady $255 to $155 for my exact dates and times. I booked and now I'm all set.