I have read differing opnions.
Trip is in August. Fixed dates, smaller airport with fairly limited # of arrivals/departures, and I would prefer getting in before 5p (meeting someone). Also would prefer not leaving for home at the crack of dawn.
No objection to red eye flights, or multiple connections.
I had one picked that was perfect, but failed to pull the trigger, and it’s gone. Now I hear the sequest-whatever is going to mean fewer flights. Go for it now, or wait?
Go to kayak.com. Pick out flight. There should be a calendar on the right for the month, giving costs for every day. You can change from specific days to flexible dates.
Then, sign up for email alerts on a daily basis.
Wait patiently, pull the trigger when you think it’s a reasonable price.
I’ve booked MSP ~ ORD $62, MSP ~ DEN, $72, and MSP ~ LGA $148 in the past month. Pretty good prices for round trips.
[ul]
[li]Best time to buy a plane ticket? On the weekend, according to study - February 2013[/li][li] The Very Best Time To Book Airline Tickets, According To Kayak - October 2012[/li][li] Can you solve the ‘when to buy’ conundrum? - January 2013[/li][li] The Best Time to Buy Airfare - No date given[/li][li] Cheapest Days to Fly and Best Time to Buy Airline Tickets - July 2011[/li][/ul]
Choose your poison. About the same as when is it a good time to get into the stock market (In this case, not now. You’re too late.).
FWIW, when I’m planning a trip I do regular searches daily, at the same time. (Tuesday and Wednesday searches at midday seems to offer the best fares.) I’m looking for weekly trends. But I’m also selecting destinations I’ve been to before as control tests. While some of it works, much of the time it’s a crap shoot.
However, it’s been my experience that there is a sweet spot and it starts about 60 days prior to departure and ends about three weeks before departure. It will vary by destination, time of year, and day of travel. The advice to travel midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday) seems to hold. When you check out flights, go as far as reviewing individual flights and seat bookings. If the projected aircraft has a low seat capacity, most predictions can be tossed out of the window. The airline has you as a captive audience and does its best to squeeze passengers on those kings of flights, no matter what.
A couple of years ago Microsoft bought out FareCast. It’s now part of Bing travel. It’s worth using it for predictions. However, if you origin/destination pair is not so well travelled (as you state) the data may not be there.
I typically shoot for buying my tickets six weeks out, but I start watching prices up to three months out. That strategy hasn’t failed me so far and I’ve been using it for the last four or five years.
Sites like kayak.com are very handy to check prices across multiple airlines. If Southwest offers service from your departure city to your destination, you should definitely check their pricing also! They don’t allow their rates to be quoted on the various discount travel sites, so the only way to see their fares is to go to their website directly.
Southwest just started offering service out of Atlanta less than a year ago! I’ve flown to Los Angeles twice with them since then for less than $325 round trip! They don’t charge baggage fees for the first two checked bags, which is a nice perk. It’s worth a look!
As noted, don’t forget baggage fees. They’ve gotten high enough that they’ve become a significant factor in choosing which airline to fly. There’s no point in saving sixty dollars on your ticket price if you end up spending a hundred dollars for your luggage.
Good info here, thanks. I have to book two RT October flights to Europe, probably SFO-Munich, so I’ll be strategizing…
It very complicated and confusing. I recently looked into a multi-city international flight. Orbitz came in at $1154.00, Kayak had $838.00. What was very interesting was that Kayak had me buying through Orbitz!
If you search for your flights with Bing, you can use their price predictor. It tells you whether the price is likely to increase or decrease, along with the confidence level of the prediction. That said, I’ve not used it so I don’t know how accurate it is.
Yapta sends updates to you when the price changes up or down. Best of all, they tell you how to get the airline to refund your money on the price change. Our tix changed by over $200 and with info from Yapta, we called AA and got the difference. (Minus a “convenience fee.”)
Thanks. Didn’t know that; I’d never tried Bing for any search.
I tried it just now for SFO-MUC in October and there was no price predictor available. A message said it’s only available when searching for when
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