Best days to book air travel

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I'm going to England in May and spending about a week+ there, may take a train to Germany or France for a day or two, and when I leave and come back doesn't really matter.

Are there best days to travel both in terms of low drama and price?

[Paul_Heery]

According to The Vacationer, there is no best day to book. But there are some days when it is cheaper to fly.

"Generally, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest days of the week to fly. Saturday is usually the cheapest weekend day to fly."

[masraum]

And if you go to an airline's website and do a dozen different searches, different days, times flights, etc..., eventually they'll figure "he's definitely going to fly" and they'll bump the cost. So if you're going to do that, clear the cookies for that airline every few searches or if you're searching and the prices jump way up, then clear the cookies from your browser.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Tuesday departures are usually more low key and cheaper than Sunday or Monday.

[masraum]

If you shop on the United website, they will usually show you prices for several days and flights before and after the days that you chose including the costs. I assume they do that to get folks to spread out into the more lightly used days.

Here's a shot of a random search. To get the popup that shows the other days, I clicked a "button" at the top of the page that said "show 7 day calendar". You can see that a regular search shows you the varying prices throughout the day, and then the "show 7 day calendar" shows you varying prices in the days surrounding your chosen days.

[JavaBrewer]

Google Flights is also good for comparing costs across other airlines and once you have dates entered their calendar will show prices for the entire month+ to compare and look for a more cost effective itinerary.

We flew British Airways LAX to LHR coach non stop on the A380. It royally sucked, very cramped seating and service was more like United or American than a European carrier. Their computer systems were also failing the week prior to Christmas so just dropping our luggage took over 2 hours - we were already confirmed with boarding passes on our phones.

Not sure on your exact itinerary but if you plan to visit the EU from the UK you might want to consider flying out of the EU rather than commuting back to UK. Will add to the cost but you will save a ton of hassle and time. LAX to LHR is ~ a 10 hour flight as it is.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Great information and details, thank you. I currently have no itinerary other than visiting someone and then it's just winging it. I have found that the best trips are getting somewhere and then figuring out what to do once you get there. But I will look at flights to Heathrow and returns from both Stuttgart and Paris. Those might prove interesting.

One bit of bad news for me is Norwegian Air doesn't seem to be flying out of Boston anymore. Used it for Paris in '19, excellent service.