Timing airline ticket purchase for best price, advice please?

[scottmandue]

I know that if you wait too late to purchase your ticket they know they have you over a barrel and you get screwed. However it also sucks to buy your ticket months in advance only to see prices drop before your flight.

Any of you seasoned travelers have tips on how to get or find the best price for a specific flight on a specific day?

NOT counting flying standby... camping out at the airport is not my idea of fun... no matter how much money it saves... I always feel bad for those folks standing by the gate with that forlorn look not knowing if/when they are going to catch a flight.

Thanks in advance.

[m21sniper]

I always use priceline or expedia, booked about 2-3 weeks in advance. It's always less than half of the retail price, but i only fly once in a blue moon.

[carreraken]

I search many sites to find the best deal, and check frequently.

I use:

Kayak.com
farecast.com
voyij.com

I usually find decent deals, but not necessarily the best - timing is too unpredictable...

good luck!

[Rick Lee]

I use Kayak and Southwest as soon as I have my dates and just keep checking back until a few weeks before deaprture. I don't care as much if it's business travel, but I always snag the best deals when I'm paying for it.

[9dreizig]

I use Hotwire or travelocity... find the flight numbers then go to that airline directly online,, it's always cheaper that way

[legion]

1-2 weeks in advance. If you get less than 7 days out, the price goes up each day.

I use priceline/orbitz/travelocity to find the flight I want, then book on the specific airline's website. Travelocity especially is guilty of raising the price during booking and loading on hidden fees. I've found the least fees (and fluctuation of ticket price during the booking process) using airline websites directly.

[scottmandue]

Been using travelocity and expedia... need to start checking southwest as well...

Kind of had a feeling two to three weeks was best but wanted to see what the PPOT brain trust thought.

[masraum]

There's another good thread on this here in OT. Someone posted this info.

Farther out than 6 weeks is $$. I guess the reasoning is that if it's that far out, you've planned for it and budgeted for it.

less than 3 weeks (or 1 week especially) is $$. Reasoning there, is that it's last minute and you don't have a choice, so the price is high.

3-6 weeks out seems to be the sweet spot. I purchase the tickets for my mom to come visit. Last time, I'd been checking once a week for quite a while. It'd been $400 which I knew was more than I usually pay. I checked at 7 weeks and it was still $400. I checked the next week and the ticket had gone from $400 to $250 which is what I'm used to paying.

Another thing that I've noticed and other folks have noticed. If you check the same flight several times in the same day trying to find a slightly cheaper combo of departure and arrival times, sometimes it'll cause the cost to go up. I guess they track the website hits and when it gets to a certain point, it's flagged as a flight pattern that's in demand and the price can go up a lot. So don't run almost the same query 10 or 15 times on the Continental site (or other sites I assume) all in the same day.

[Gogar]

One of the sites (unfortunately I can't remember which one) has a "Price Trends" graph that is great; usually it's 3-4 weeks, as already mentioned.

I use kayak.com, because it searches travelocity and Expedia and Orbitz for you on one page. Unfortunately, it does not include Southwest in its searches.

[Monza_dh]

Always fly wed-wed or Thur-wed etc. You get killed Sat-Sat during vacation times. The earlier the better but for a couple with a flex schedule there is nothing better than logging onto lastminute.com and getting a weekend in Miami for a few hundo.

Try this site as well. He has links into all the last minute and consolidated sites, Kayak, Cheap air etc.

Scroll to the bottom of the home page:

http://www.johnnyjet.com/home.asp

[Don Plumley]

Farecast.

[Heel n Toe]

We saw a segment on some TV news show that said no matter when you need to fly, you can generally get better prices if you make your call or go on the web for tickets on Tuesdays... often there's a fairly significant price drop after Monday for some unknown reason.

[911Freak]

www.bookingbuddy.com links to 95% of airlines

Book departures on Tues/wed and returns tues-wed or if absolutely needed sunday

I just booked round trip from LA to DFW roundtrip within next 2 weeks for 250!!

Bookingbuddy. Baby!

[Eric Coffey]

If you are looking at primarily West Coast/SW routes, I'd check with Alaska Airlines directly (alaskaair.com) as well. They have an internal "low fare finder", and are usually cheaper than the 3rd party sites for the same flight. For example SEA to PHX is usually around $225 total (including taxes/fees) for weekly round-trip travel.

[cstreit]

Remember that much of the pricing is also dependant on market conditions and popularity of the flight. A flight MIGHT go down last minute, but only if there are a lot of empty seats. Full flights or regularly used ones don't do this. 3-4 weeks seems to be the cheapest fares, however there are no guarantees. My employer owns the software the sets pricing for many airlines and hotels and the amount of intelligence and market conditions that go into the pricing algorithms means that guessing the best time on a particular flight is damn near impossible.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

If you are looking at primarily West Coast/SW routes, I'd check with Alaska Airlines directly (alaskaair.com) as well. They have an internal "low fare finder", and are usually cheaper than the 3rd party sites for the same flight. For example SEA to PHX is usually around $225 total (including taxes/fees) for weekly round-trip travel.

Thanks, I'm commuting from Los Angeles (LAX, Long Beach, Santa Ana) to Portland OR. I have been flying Jetblue however I am also looking at Alaska.

Originally Posted by cstreit

Remember that much of the pricing is also dependant on market conditions and popularity of the flight. A flight MIGHT go down last minute, but only if there are a lot of empty seats. Full flights or regularly used ones don't do this. 3-4 weeks seems to be the cheapest fares, however there are no guarantees. My employer owns the software the sets pricing for many airlines and hotels and the amount of intelligence and market conditions that go into the pricing algorithms means that guessing the best time on a particular flight is damn near impossible.

Tell me about it... my preferred airport is Long Beach... flights between there and Portland can range from over $200 to in the $60's!

[carreraken]

Alaska Air is introducing direct flights to HI from the SF Bay area later this year at a deep discount. We booked our vacation at 50% off rack prices!