When did you book flights for next June?

[mkkao924]

I am wondering typically how advance do people book their flight?

 

I have been watching flight price, for 2 one way (LAX -> ANC, YVR -> LAX) next June.

 

Sure enough, after I booked the YVR -> LAX, it dropped the price for 20% (WestJet).

 

We are only looking at non stop flight, and we know we probably won't get the lowest price anyway...

[CruiserBruce]

This is more a "Cruise Air" board question. There is no magic time to buy. You start watching flights, perhaps even before you can buy for the days you want (by watching similar schedules to your desired ones). This gives you an idea of prices. When you see prices you can live with, you buy, and don't look back. Don't buy in the first week or two after they are released. Those are very rarely the best prices.

[geoherb]

This year, I booked my flights three weeks before the cruise--the same day I booked the cruise. One of the reasons I booked was that airfare was not too high, under $400 for round-trip flights from North Carolina to Vancouver.

[masterdrago]

I've read on more than one flight forum that the cheapest fares usually fall about 53 days out from departure. When we decided and booked our cruise, we began watching the prices closely. You can even mark flights in a way to have any price changes sent to your cell as a text. It turned out that the 53 day thing ended up not applying to the flight we wanted. We had picked the flight we were going to take and watched the seating assignments change. When it got close to about half full, we pulled the trigger due to wanting specific seats. Used miles and "companion fare" on AlaskaAir to get our best prices. It was about 90 days out. If you are just price shopping, I've also heard that the cheapest is the day of or 1 day b4. Sounds a bit risky to me. Matrix - ITA Software by Google is a fair way to search, although I have found some flights can disappear and then return in a couple of days. I've also been told that some flights are not shown at all. Some destinations don't have non stop flights - example, IAH to ANC.

[CruiserBruce]

17 minutes ago, masterdrago said:

I've read on more than one flight forum that the cheapest fares usually fall about 53 days out from departure. When we decided and booked our cruise, we began watching the prices closely. You can even mark flights in a way to have any price changes sent to your cell as a text. It turned out that the 53 day thing ended up not applying to the flight we wanted. We had picked the flight we were going to take and watched the seating assignments change. When it got close to about half full, we pulled the trigger due to wanting specific seats. Used miles and "companion fare" on AlaskaAir to get our best prices. It was about 90 days out. If you are just price shopping, I've also heard that the cheapest is the day of or 1 day b4. Sounds a bit risky to me. Matrix - ITA Software by Google is a fair way to search, although I have found some flights can disappear and then return in a couple of days. I've also been told that some flights are not shown at all. Some destinations don't have non stop flights - example, IAH to ANC.

 

My emphasis. This explains why so many frequent flyers here don't recommend believing the "best fares are XXX days prior to" info.

[AlanF65]

Google flights does a good job of tracking your list of flights for price changes. Lots of price fluctuations.

Last year SFO First class  to YVR and back to SFO was about 618; I was waiting for it to drop and bought to late for more. For next year when I see it near that number I am going to bite.

 

[sbell1]

I booked in August for flights from Washington DC to Anchorage and Vancouver back to DC. Both of these flights have gone up in price since my booking. I booked early because I wanted specific times.

[mkkao924]

Thanks for the information.

 

I pulled the trigger and purchased the flight for two reasons:

1) We have 6 people, if we wait we may not have the seats together

2) We also want specific time, which is morning flight non-stop so we don't have to deal with red-eye and also save one night of hotel stay.

 

I am sure the price will probably drop, I guess I will just follow Bruce's advice, NOT LOOKING BACK!

[sr71_1]

booked our flight in Sept.   No regrets - seats & departure that we wanted  (no surprises)    

[Negril60]

I just booked our flights from Cincinnati to Anchorage for May. I have been watching. I booked 2 one way tickets being it was a Multi city. I was also using Delta skymiles for one traveler for each leg of trip. We ended up paying  $781.41 for the total flight. By using my AExpress card we have free baggage. Yes this took lots of planning using credit card and immediately paying off charges but it pays off. 

[VermeulT]

On 11/7/2019 at 3:43 PM, masterdrago said:

Matrix - ITA Software by Google is a fair way to search, although I have found some flights can disappear and then return in a couple of days. I've also been told that some flights are not shown at all.

Matrix ITA Software is awesome.  You can search for flight across several days and multiple city pairs (ie SEA and YVR to JFK and BDL - for me Hartford or JFK to Seattle or Vancouver) and find the price and option that works best for you.  You can filter the number of stops, time of day, length of layover....

No they do not include all airlines.  It uses the SABRE system that travel agents use.  Southwest for sure is not included so you'd have to look that separately.