As I mentioned in a European train thread, I’m planning a trip to Europe next July. My plan is for 4 of us to fly from Oklahoma City to London and then fly home from Rome a couple of weeks later. Right now, the lowest price that I can find that includes a single checked bag for each of us, is around $1300/person. That doesn’t seem outrageous to me but all of the information that I can google indicates that the best time to book international travel is 3-4 months early. Is there a significant chance that prices could drop very much for a booking like I’m looking for? Is the chance about equal to what it might do in the opposite direction?
Can’t you book refundable tickets now, and they cancel and rebook if the prices drop? Alternatively, you can pray for a massive global recession since that should reduce demand and improve pricing.
That adds about $300 more per ticket now which I guess protects me from potential price increases. It’s probably not a bad idea but it puts me at the mercy of Expedia and/or Delta’s refund system.
My brain really isn’t wanting to brain today.
I’ve honestly given up on trying to time my purchase to get the cheapest possible fare. Once I decide I am for sure going to travel, and the price doesn’t seem outrageous, I go ahead and buy the ticket. And then I never check the fares again, because if they do go down I don’t want to know about it.
One thing unrelated to fares, but another thing to keep in mind buying plane tickets so far in advance is that the airline’s schedule is subject to change. That far in the future the flight schedules you’re seeing are pretty much just placeholders; they are not yet finalized.
It’s like trying to game the share market by buying at the bottom, you will never know if the price you see is the best price you can get. My advice is to buy the tickets at a price that seems to offer you value for money. If this price never occurs then the holiday was never in your budget. If you buy at this price then two weeks later there’s a massive drop in prices, you can’t know that in advance, be happy that you bought tickets at a price that seemed reasonable to you at the time of purchase. If you were to ask the CEO of an airline when the best time to buy tickets is, they’d say “I don’t know man, yield is a dark art”.
Edited to add: My partner and I are both airline employees, we buy the tickets at the price we see once our time off is approved, we don’t think about it any further than that. You may be able to get nice cheap fairs by holding out till very late, but if you don’t you’re fucked because you end up having to pay the “desperate-to-travel” rate. Overall, buying earlier is better.