Airline Tickets

[o0fefe0o]

How far in advance do you normally purchase your airline tickets? I'm about 3 months out and still have not purchased my tickets yet. Just wondering if that's normal, or if I should go ahead and pay the insane prices now?

[bus man]

I'm an inveterate planner, and I tend to buy my plane tickets between 2 and 3 months in advance of travel. This habit was drilled into me in college, when I traveled between the Northeast and Florida over Christmas break, and found that the flights tended to sell out well ahead of time.

 

By waiting until closer to departure time, you may get lower fares . . . or you may find the flights sold out, or the only thing you can get is a connecting flight at inconvenient times. Go ahead, bite the bullet, and get a convenient flight now; that way, when the time comes and you're on vacation, you will (hopefully) get to enjoy a more direct, convenient flight.

[6rugrats]

I am not sure what "insane prices" are. I see airfare for your dates around $319 RT.

 

I probably would have purchased my airfare for this trip a long time ago. For the airfare I found above, you are booking into a pretty high fare class; that means the lower priced fare classes are gone. Fuel prices have gone up, airlines have cut routing, and IME, flights are pretty full.

[John Bull]

Ouch!!!

 

My experience is that airfares are more likely to go up as the date closes in.

And I'm guessing you don't have a lot of wiggle-room on dates - if the ship sails on a tuesday, a cheap offer for the wednesday is going to infuriate you and a cheap offer for the previous sunday is gonna be swallowed up by hotel bills. You'll be flying on the monday, or on the tuesday with fingers crossed, whatever the price.

 

Late flight bargains are great if you just want to get away somewhere, anywhere, and you're not worried about when or whether.

 

You're committed to dates, so book soonest.

 

JB :)

[o0fefe0o]

Thanks for the input guys, I'm going to bite the bullet and book them now. I haven't booked a flight in about a year, and only paid about $200 pp, so it was hard to stomach the $344 pp. But, that's better than having no flights available! ;)

[gerryl12]

I usualy find the cheapest fares 60 to 90 days out. It also depends on how popular the routes are and the day of the week and .... and......

[Colorado Kat]

Yes, go ahead and book now. It's terrible when you can't get a seat because the flights sold out while you were waiting.

[MichCook]

Thanks for the input guys, I'm going to bite the bullet and book them now. I haven't booked a flight in about a year, and only paid about $200 pp, so it was hard to stomach the $344 pp. But, that's better than having no flights available! ;)

 

I think that's a smart choice. Enjoy your cruise!

[Dayenu]

Depends on the airline and where I fly. If to Europe, I buy tix as far in advance as possible, and stop checking the prices ;) but usually they go up.

 

If domestic, Southwest Airlines prices go up and down all the time, we have tix for our next trip, and due to price change $100 credit each that we can use within the year.

[crzndeb]

I agree with the 60 to 90 days....my daughter is flying up 1way from San Diego to Seattle, at the end of Sept., and the price dropped from $131 to $96 (Alaska Air) in 1 day....luckily, I was watching it daily and notified her to buy yesterday.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

I would buy them as soon as possible

[I_heart_vaca]

I have booked air travel for business for years (I'm an event planner) and the 60 - 90 day mark are usually the most reasonable deals, but if you can afford to have a flexible schedule you could get good deals within 30 - 45 days. That being said these days with full flights and less flights (do to mergers and partnerships of airlines) that early window has gone away and anything within 45 days is usually very expensive. Also, with less competition for routes the airlines just don't mark down like they used to - bummer :(

 

I would book now and count the extra fee (should the price go down between now and the trip) as stress reduction fee! Have a wonderful trip!

[sjcruiser]

It depends on when we book or put the deposit on the cruise. If it's kind of last minute, which most of ours are, we buy the airline tickets, after we make the deposit, and then buy the travel insurance right after that, which is usually the same night or a day or two after. For cruises with a while out, we keep watch of fares, and compare with previous fares or fare tracking sites, and try to use that to get us the best price.