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Tricks to getting a good deal on the flight?


Crazy4Camping
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Since cruises are obviously very time-specific, our flight has to be as well. Also, going Sunday to Sunday hurts us as of course it's cheaper to fly during the week. Does anyone have any pointers/advice on getting the best deal on our flights? We're finding that they are going to cost so much more than we thought but still hopeful that once all the airlines are booking that far out that we can find a reasonable price.

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Best price for domestic flights is 40-30 days prior departure date. Price goes down on weekdays VS weekend , so check them frequently Mon-Fri. Check one way ticket, sometimes your can catch a good deal and book return flight with a different airline. Kayak has price alert option , set it up.

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Go for a new credit card with 50000 miles/points and fly basically free.right now Delta Amex has a pretty good deal

 

sent from my iPhone Xi

 

 

 

Not as easy as you might think. We used AA Advantage for a few years and get 100,000's of thousand of miles a year for business. We found the airlines make it difficult to fly the best hours with the least layovers. We finally switched to Capital One Venture. Two for one miles on everything. You can buy tickets to any airline and use their "purchase eraser" We fly quite often and whoever said one way is cheaper, never.

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Since cruises are obviously very time-specific, our flight has to be as well. Also, going Sunday to Sunday hurts us as of course it's cheaper to fly during the week. Does anyone have any pointers/advice on getting the best deal on our flights? We're finding that they are going to cost so much more than we thought but still hopeful that once all the airlines are booking that far out that we can find a reasonable price.

Keep checking but they usually go up, don't book on a weekend.

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I have found that flights are lowest price a couple of weeks after they first come out. Prices go down if no one purchases them and chances are people don't purchase tickets 333 days out. But also you have to watch because sometimes travel companies will purchase a block of tickets and that will drive prices up.

I think it depends on where you are going and when to be able to score a great deal 30 or 40 days out. If you are flying in the winter months from a snowy area to a warm destination seats are limited and often very expensive if you leave it too late.

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Watch for the day Southwest opens their schedule for your dates. That’s if you can use Southwest. Don’t know where you’re coming or going to.

 

I agree with Jerseygirl. Southwest also starts new sales on Tuesday mornings and sometimes I find additional Southwest deals (unpublished) on Thursday evenings. Southwest doesn't charge bag fees and seat fees, but you do have to check in online exactly 24 hours ahead of your flights to get a good spot in line (no assigned seats). Southwest also allows you to change your flights with no penalty (just pay the difference in the fare). Actually, if you book with points you can cancel at anytime and get the points refunded. It's one reason I don't buy trip insurance. I book with points and typically I lock in my flights early and then if the fare goes down or plans change, I rebook and they put the points back in my account. Last year I booked a flight from Columbus, OH to Fort Lauderdale and the points started above 10,000 and by the time we left, I got one way for 1,600 points. Southwest also has 2 different credit cards you can sign up for to get points. You can even swing the credit card points offer to get a free companion pass (Google it). It's not for everyone, but if you do your homework (and we know you do because you are reading this!), you can get many free flights. I have actually booked 15 roundtrip tickets using the companion pass and credit card points.

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There is no magic answer. I normally book out pretty far, but I have read 60-75 days is when you get your best deal. I sign up for every email list of the airlines that go the route I want to fly. I check on Google Flights. I downloaded the app Hopper. When you see a price you are willing to pay, grab it. Airlines are kind of like Costco. Here today, not available tomorrow. South West you can book right now out until the End of October. The other major players, much further. When you do narrow it down to say two carriers, make sure you are comparing Apples to Apples. If you are comparing eg: SW to UA and you want to take 2 bags, then make sure you add on checked luggage fee for 2 bags. Also note that on SW unless you pay for early boarding, you are probably sitting in the back since you can't pick your seats ahead of time. Good luck!

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I start searching about 6 months , or further out for flights. There is no "magic" time to book.

I look every day at flights, watching fares going up and down. I finally snag the flight I can deal with, high or low, and live with it! Of course, I have seen less, and then more.

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There is no magic answer.
There is no "magic" time to book.
These answers are the truest advice posted in this thread so far. There are no tricks, only hard work, a willingness to learn, and often a healthy dose of luck. Time-critical travel (as air travel to a cruise usually is) is always liable to be more expensive than if you have a lot of flexibility to pick and choose.

 

But there are probably things that need to be said about these posts:

 

Watch for the day Southwest opens their schedule for your dates.
On the day that Southwest opens for booking, it is often the case that they will be cheaper than other airlines' fares on that day. But if you wait until that date, you may have missed cheaper fares that the other airlines were asking for before Southwest opened for booking. Many people who have waited for Southwest have been disappointed because, while Southwest was then the cheapest, they had foregone cheaper fares that they could have booked earlier with other airlines.

 

Best price for domestic flights is 40-30 days prior departure date. Price goes down on weekdays VS weekend ...
These are dangerous rules to live by. Sometimes these things will be true, and sometimes not. This isn't a reliable way to get a good price: you could find that for your travel dates on your route, by 40 days prior to the flight prices will be sky high and they then only keep going up.
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Best price for domestic flights is 40-30 days prior departure date. .

 

If you have found this to be true, it is almost certainly just a coincidence. If it was really always true that 40-30 days out was the magic time, demand would skyrocket during that time and in response? Airlines would catch on and jack the prices up. Econ 101

 

 

I have found that flights are lowest price a couple of weeks after they first come out. Prices go down if no one purchases them and chances are people don't purchase tickets 333 days out.

 

Plenty of people purchase tickets well in advance. As for a "magic" time to purchase, see above.

 

Bottom line: there is no magic time to purchase. Sometimes the best time (which will only be known for certain in hindsight) is right after tickets go on sale. Sometimes it will be 6 months out. Sometimes it will be 4 weeks out. Etc. etc. Airlines use complicated algorithms that constantly assess actual sales vs. projected sales and a lot of other factors, and prices go up and down in response. There are some very general "certainties" regarding things like holiday pricing and Saturday stayovers, prices for the most part will change frequently, going both up and down, between the time tickets are first offered for sale and the day the flight takes off.

 

OP: If you'll list what your travel dates and departure/destination cities are, as well as the rates you've currently found to be super high as well as the rates you expected to find, there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum that can probably give you some good insight as to the prices you're seeing vs. your expectations, and/or specific tips for your exact itinerary and travel dates that might help you find better options.

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All of the airlines - from Southwest to United, Lufthansa to Qantas - employ many, many people whose job it is to program their "revenue management" computer programs to ensure that every flight yields the maximum revenue possible. If you think you can outsmart those people and the top-secret computer algorithms they produce, go for it.

 

Those programs look at local market conditions (Miami and Seattle during cruise season, competition from Fort Lauderdale and Vancouver.) They look at historical demand information, they look at the price of fuel and labor, the number of seats on flights operated by their competitors, they look at sales by booking class and which cabin is selling best, and on and on... And they do this every minute of every day, and sometimes will update their fares (specifically, the mix of fares available on a given flight) from one hour to the next.

 

The only reliable approach a consumer can take in the face of this very un-level playing field is to decide what you're willing to pay, pay it, and then stop worrying about it. In my view, if you book a cruise and then announce you're shocked at the cost of flying to or from your departure point simply means you didn't do your homework.

 

It helps - a little - to think like a big business. For example, many people think that buying their airfare right when the fares become available is a case of being an early bird getting the worm. But airline seats aren't worms. Eleven or twelve months out (when most legacy carriers open their booking windows) they might not know what the price of fuel will be when your flight rolls around. So like any smart businessperson, they'll set fares higher to "hedge" against the risk of the price going up, thereby threatening their profit margin. If the price of fuel doesn't go up, then the seat you bought eleven months ago is very profitable. But in the meantime, as their knowledge of the price of fuel improves (through their purchase contracts) they might be willing to release seats at cheaper prices in order to fill them up. If you've waited you might come away spending less, but then it's YOU that's run the risk that the prices might go up instead.

 

As others have said, the key is homework. It doesn't take a lot of effort to go online to a decent website like ITA and "test" the market, maybe once a month, to see how prices are doing for your proposed travel dates. You won't get any benefit by knowing what fares to Alaska are like in March when you're planning to cruise in August.

 

Then when you see something you can live with, pull the trigger and don't look back. Focus on things you CAN control after that.

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I always check prices as soon as dates open up. Just this week I was watching flights from Ord to Mia. For next February. Thursday ,flights opened up on American. 7am prices were $1200 pp r/t. Outrageous! I checked again at 11am. I got nonstop both ways for $ 188 pp. unbelievable. Checking again that evening costs were $399. It pays to just keep checking

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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We once had a flight booked, one way, to FLL. I have the airline app on my phone. One day I was bored, so I just opened the app and BOOM, as I was looking at it, I was offered an upgrade to first class for $100. I took it. We now have the same flight booked. They were offering the upgrade for $147. I waited until it dropped. Then it went up to $278. Go figure. There is no magic formula.

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There have been a lot of interesting things said here. But, for the OP, what you need to do is separate the factual from the anecdotal. Statements by people like Gardyloo, Globalizer and Waterbug123 are based on many years of experience booking flights. Statements that sound like "once, this happened" or similar, may very well be true....that one time. And thus may not have any relevance to the OP's situation.

 

Southwest is not always the cheapest. That has been proven time and time again. Yes, Southwest can have some great fares. Other times, not so much. Each case is different. And, as described, Southwest has it's limitations...no Hawaii flights, no international flights, except a few to the Caribbean and Central America. Plus the whole "cattle call" thing. OK for some, not for this flyer.

 

As mentioned, there is no magic time to book. There is no one way to get the best fare. And there is no way around the fact that research is required. Many of us almost live in the cloud of air scheduling and booking...that is helpful. We fly 6-8 times a year, all over the world, but are constantly checking fares and routing, even before the schedules open up for the flights we are planning. That way I know the "average" fares, and the standard schedules.

 

To those that say the best time to buy is 30 days, 40 days, 60 days in advance...let me give an example of why not (anecdotal, I know). We are flying SFO-MUC in May, returning in June. Business class for me, very cheap Saver Award for DW. I started watching the fares as soon as the schedule was up...as this was a new route for United. My Business Class fare started at about $4400, dropped in November to $4000. I felt sure there was a sale coming, so waited. But the fare has only gone up since then...last I checked over $8K. I got in at $4400. I don't look often any more. Why has this fare bounced so much? Because it is perceived as a business heavy route (between Silicon Valley and a key business area in Germany), and those types of pax book much closer to the flight date. So those "30-40-60" day rules could have almost doubled my fare.

 

Without knowing OP's flight needs it is hard to advise them...to and from where? Dates?

Edited by CruiserBruce
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Watch for the day Southwest opens their schedule for your dates. That’s if you can use Southwest. Don’t know where you’re coming or going to.

 

Hoping to use Southwest but they still aren't booking out past October! I will have to wait to be able to compare them.

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If you have found this to be true, it is almost certainly just a coincidence. If it was really always true that 40-30 days out was the magic time, demand would skyrocket during that time and in response? Airlines would catch on and jack the prices up. Econ 101

 

 

 

 

Plenty of people purchase tickets well in advance. As for a "magic" time to purchase, see above.

 

Bottom line: there is no magic time to purchase. Sometimes the best time (which will only be known for certain in hindsight) is right after tickets go on sale. Sometimes it will be 6 months out. Sometimes it will be 4 weeks out. Etc. etc. Airlines use complicated algorithms that constantly assess actual sales vs. projected sales and a lot of other factors, and prices go up and down in response. There are some very general "certainties" regarding things like holiday pricing and Saturday stayovers, prices for the most part will change frequently, going both up and down, between the time tickets are first offered for sale and the day the flight takes off.

 

OP: If you'll list what your travel dates and departure/destination cities are, as well as the rates you've currently found to be super high as well as the rates you expected to find, there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum that can probably give you some good insight as to the prices you're seeing vs. your expectations, and/or specific tips for your exact itinerary and travel dates that might help you find better options.

 

We're traveling from ROC to SJU on Feb 3 and then back on Feb 10. We need to arrive in SJU on the first Sunday in the early afternoon. We need to leave SJU on the last day late enough to make the plane(considering we won't be off the ship til after 9 am)but land early enough to grab a few hours of sleep before work the next day, so preferably before 9 pm.

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