Plane Tickets?!?!?

averee2moon

In your experience Is it better to purchase plane tickets in advance or at the last minute?? Just wandering what others thought about it!

81

imo, plane early, hotel late.

although plane tickets fluculate so damn much.

i'm following my flight to san fran from chicago in late june.

booked it at 240 round trip.

about a week later it was up to 500

it has been slipping back and is now sitting right at 400

nuffingman

Depends how popular the flight is. Leave it too late and the plane may be full.

I've also noticed recently that with some flights it's cheaper to book months before as the prices start going up nearer the time. I paid £172 for a return flight to Turkey 3 months ago. My daughter decided she wants to come along and with the same airline, same flight £196 a month ago.

As 81 said book hotels late, or see if they have special deals at anytime.

RKCNDY

in my experience, it really depends on where/when you are flying. Major city/small city. Are there lots of flights coming and going?

Seattle to Montana: not very many flights to there, so we bought tix once 4 months in advance $375/RT. If we waited and bought last munute, it would have cost $525. (It would've been cheaper to fly Seattle to SLC to Montana)

Times count too. right now, I can fly from Seattle to LAX tomorrow at 7:25am and pay $325 First Class, OR fly out tomorrow at 9:15am for $759 Coach.

81

we use priceline to name our own price. works well if you don't mind a little suspense on where you are going to stay.

i also found that if you are going to visit a city a second time, you can call up the hotel you stayed at the first time, explain that you stayed there for X amount and ask if they will take that directly. the one place we stayed would have, but they were booked solid for the weekend for some function.

RYEzupSF

I just bought a ticket to New York from SF. Flying next friday, returning Sunday the following week. Got my ticket for less than $300. On Sunday the same flight was priced at $750. You never know. ...my advice is to find out what a good price for a ticket to your destination is and when you see one in that range snatch it up. There may be a better deal later, but there may not and then you end up paying a lot more.

Where you going?

StillHere

bought a few :roll: tix philly to/from seattle over the past few years
and this is what i've found to be true...it really is
purchase between tuesday morning and the wee wee hours of wednesday morning
the weekend price hikes are over and the mid-week price wars begin on tuesday and seem to hit a low end on wednesday..most specifically the wee early morning hours on a wednesday morning
yep you know, after tuesday midnight ~ not after wednesday midnight cuz then you'll catch the prices going back up again for thurs, fri and the weekend buyers
i'm talking all eastern time here, and so your times may be different, keep a close eye on it
its worth your wallet to stay up ... the prices are really worth the bleary eyed wednesday workday
i just generally do most of my shopping/pricing at those hours (kids you know)
and turns out, that's the best time to buy airfare
check it out....well, too late for this week..but check it out...start on tuesday early and check back a few times until the wee hours on wednesday morning..you'll see what i mean, it's true
believe me we have done a lot of searching for low prices
also, we've found that the best prices tend to be had about 3 wks out
UNLESS you don't mind hanging round the airport and doing a standby, then grab it up last minute, but that's a risky proposition if you don't like hanging out and sleeping in airports or you have to be somewhere at a set time
you can save a lot that way, but it can be a real hassle
also
so far we've found that buying direct from delta is the least expensive way to go
of course that depends on what city you're flying in/out of
i hear that southwest drives a hard bargain as well (but never used them)
but we've always done best with delta
the bargain fare finder sites haven't been able to do as good a job as going direct to the airline
at least in our case
OH and one more thing...
consider flying into/out of your next closest airport
for instance flying into philly might cost say $40 more than flying into newark
then again it might cost $40 for the gas from newark to home, so its a toss up
BUT your next closest airport may be much cheaper than that...so check it out


good luck!

averee2moon

RYEzupSF wrote:

I just bought a ticket to New York from SF. Flying next friday, returning Sunday the following week. Got my ticket for less than $300. On Sunday the same flight was priced at $750. You never know. ...my advice is to find out what a good price for a ticket to your destination is and when you see one in that range snatch it up. There may be a better deal later, but there may not and then you end up paying a lot more.

Where you going?

CT to PIT. not a far distance but flying beats driving! Thanks I think i should stop procrastinating

averee2moon

StillHere wrote:

bought a few :roll: tix philly to/from seattle over the past few years
and this is what i've found to be true...it really is
purchase between tuesday morning and the wee wee hours of wednesday morning
the weekend price hikes are over and the mid-week price wars begin on tuesday and seem to hit a low end on wednesday..most specifically the wee early morning hours on a wednesday morning
yep you know, after tuesday midnight ~ not after wednesday midnight cuz then you'll catch the prices going back up again for thurs, fri and the weekend buyers
i'm talking all eastern time here, and so your times may be different, keep a close eye on it
its worth your wallet to stay up ... the prices are really worth the bleary eyed wednesday workday
i just generally do most of my shopping/pricing at those hours (kids you know)
and turns out, that's the best time to buy airfare
check it out....well, too late for this week..but check it out...start on tuesday early and check back a few times until the wee hours on wednesday morning..you'll see what i mean, it's true
believe me we have done a lot of searching for low prices
also, we've found that the best prices tend to be had about 3 wks out
UNLESS you don't mind hanging round the airport and doing a standby, then grab it up last minute, but that's a risky proposition if you don't like hanging out and sleeping in airports or you have to be somewhere at a set time
you can save a lot that way, but it can be a real hassle
also
so far we've found that buying direct from delta is the least expensive way to go
of course that depends on what city you're flying in/out of
i hear that southwest drives a hard bargain as well (but never used them)
but we've always done best with delta
the bargain fare finder sites haven't been able to do as good a job as going direct to the airline
at least in our case
OH and one more thing...
consider flying into/out of your next closest airport
for instance flying into philly might cost say $40 more than flying into newark
then again it might cost $40 for the gas from newark to home, so its a toss up
BUT your next closest airport may be much cheaper than that...so check it out


good luck!

Thanks for the advice, think I am going to wait until next Tues-Wed

81

Bubbles wrote:

imo, plane early, hotel late.

although plane tickets fluculate so damn much.

i'm following my flight to san fran from chicago in late june.

booked it at 240 round trip.

about a week later it was up to 500

it has been slipping back and is now sitting right at 400

my flight is back up to 500 today.

guacamolejoe

I'm lucky enough to be married to a flight attendant .
I keep my fingers crossed & fly stand-by .

MFCarissa

I tried to buy at plane ticket to Nashville a few weeks ago. I ended up just getting frustrated and driving. I would advise using good old Google to search for some articles on the subject. They tell you the best weeks and days to buy. It feels a bit like watching the stock market. About 3 weeks or so before the flight they seem pretty cheap. I've heard that 8 weeks out is good too. The person who said Tuesdays/early Wednesdays gave you great advice. Prices seem to change about twice a day, and those days are the best, because that's when airlines release sales and whatnot. DON'T buy on the weekends; the airlines seem to jack up prices then.

MFCarissa

And of course gas prices and such impact plane ticket pricing, so keep that in mind.

81

485 for my flight, but if you don't mind leaving at 6:20 it's only 400


it's retarded how airlines change prices on daily for the same friggen flight. why can't they just say this flight is X from day 1 to day 364.

averee2moon

averee2moon wrote:

In your experience Is it better to purchase plane tickets in advance or at the last minute?? Just wandering what others thought about it!

Well I got my tix late Tuesday night, directly from the airline seemed to be the best option and I paid $350 roundtrip. A little more than I wanted but it is what it is!

g under p

It also depends on the season and where you are flying to. Regardless book it on a TUESDAY...i forgot what the reason was but book it on that day.

peace

81

still 485.

:roll:

81

and today they are all at 456

i swear, they have a monkey in the back room just punching numbers in.

it makes zero sense.