Cost of Flights

[incognitotoday]

Which sites are best to look at?  

And do you really believe that flights change their cost farther away from the dates of travel vs them changing as the date gets closer?

It's like a cruise line: I've heard (don't know if it is true or not) that if you call a cruise line, right before (we are talking the week/day before) the actual cruise departs, you are more likely than not, to get a better deal b/c they are 'trying to fill' the ship.  

So here I am, looking for flights the week of President's Week in Feb 2014.  Do I wait to buy or buy now (they seem very high right now - average rate $700 NY to Cancun)??

Which sites are best to look at?

[Deleted]

I typically use kayak.com (and set weekly fare alerts), and sometimes bing.com for their "will this fare go down?" estimates (though they seem to not be all that helpful if the question isn't "should I book today or next week?")

Flight costs change all the time. For example, we're going to Iceland this week. I paid $980ish for my flight. We booked our flights in June, after I noticed a decrease in airfare from $1100ish. The week that followed, the price went up to $1200, then it went up to $2000ish, and my weekly Yapta summaries tell me that it has been in the $1750-$2500 range since then.

I definitely, definitely wouldn't wait until the last minute to book -- often fares skyrocket then. But that does seem high and you have tons of time so I'd monitor for a while and watch for fare decreases. One note though: you're planning on going during a very, very popular week, and the flights you're looking at are probably in very high demand, so I would expect to pay a premium for that week.

[monkeygirl18]

I always book with the airline directly. I have looked at Expedia,orbitz, kayak and all the others and have never found them to be any cheaper.

What I do is find the flight I want (either American,US Airways or Delta as they have the best and most flight times out of PHL). Then I go on to Yapta and pop it in to track the price (you can set a price point and get alerts). When the price gets to a reasonable amt. or I see the seats starting to fill up fast I purchase the tickets.

As for certain days,times, purchase way out or purchase close to departure..,eh, it's a crap shoot. I've purchased on all different days and at all different times and always months in advance and haven't gotten dinked yet. I purchase months in advance as the flights from PHL to the places we've gone aren't the best.

I always try to get flights that will allow us to get to the resort by check in time and flight home at least four hrs after check out time in order to give us the most bang for our buck.

Our up coming Jamaica trip had two good flight times out of PHL (two different airlines) and two good return times. In order not to risk not getting those flights I purchased early (June. We aren't going till a few months into next year)). Since then the price has risen $50 per ticket.

Same thing happened with MX (purchased about 10 months out for a good price. By the time we went price was higher).

That is just my personal experience. Others may have had different experiences/results.

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2013 11:01:47 GMT -5 monkeygirl18 said:

I always book with the airline directly. I have looked at Expedia,orbitz, kayak and all the others and have never found them to be any cheaper.

I should say -- I do searches on kayak so I can figure out what the best flight times/prices are, and then I book on the airline's website.  Kayak is a metasearch site so it searches all sorts of sites including the airlines' websites, and lists the prices accordingly.  I don't think that the airlines' websites have ever NOT been the cheapest option for me, but finding the flights and prices on kayak first saves me the pain of having to search each airline's site individually.

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2013 11:07:32 GMT -5 v said:

Aug 27, 2013 11:01:47 GMT -5 monkeygirl18 said:

I always book with the airline directly. I have looked at Expedia,orbitz, kayak and all the others and have never found them to be any cheaper.

I should say -- I do searches on kayak so I can figure out what the best flight times/prices are, and then I book on the airline's website.  Kayak is a metasearch site so it searches all sorts of sites including the airlines' websites, and lists the prices accordingly.  I don't think that the airlines' websites have ever NOT been the cheapest option for me, but finding the flights and prices on kayak first saves me the pain of having to search each airline's site individually.

I search Kayak too and then buy from the airline directly. I have found that buying early-as in we purchased our Feb 2014 tickets in May 2013-is good. We paid $1000 for tickets which are now $1700. But I also buy the shortest duration tickets too. If you don't care so much about stops or being in transit a few hours extra, buying last minute would probably work.

[monkeygirl18]

Aug 27, 2013 11:07:32 GMT -5 v said:

Aug 27, 2013 11:01:47 GMT -5 monkeygirl18 said:

I always book with the airline directly. I have looked at Expedia,orbitz, kayak and all the others and have never found them to be any cheaper.

I should say -- I do searches on kayak so I can figure out what the best flight times/prices are, and then I book on the airline's website.  Kayak is a metasearch site so it searches all sorts of sites including the airlines' websites, and lists the prices accordingly.  I don't think that the airlines' websites have ever NOT been the cheapest option for me, but finding the flights and prices on kayak first saves me the pain of having to search each airline's site individually.

In the beginning I used Kayak. However, since then, I have figured out my best airlines for where we are going (St.Lucia 2xs, Cancun 2xs, Antigua 1x, Jamaica 2xs and Key West 3xs) are American, Us Airways and Delta. Once we get the funds back to go other places I'll hop back on Kayak.

However, a note on Kayak, it does NOT show all available airlines at the airports. I do like Kayak and it does save some time but it is still best to know what airlines go in and out of your airport. I found the list for our preferred airport on their website. So, some additional searching may be necessary.

[GilliC]

I search on kayak, and set up a fare alert to watch it for a month or two depending on how far out it is.  I book as soon as there's a significant drop.

While I book with the airline if it's the same price or cheaper, I do end up booking with sites like Orbitz a lot for tickets on multiple airlines (not codeshares). My airport isn't served by too many airlines, so I'm typically on a non-codeshare affiliated partner flight to a hub, where I connect to another airline.

I've never seen cheap last-minute airfares the way there are cheap last-minute cruises. No one suddenly realizes that they absolutely have to go on a cruise next week.  When it comes to plane tickets, business and personal needs come up such that you really need a ticket.  And the airlines can pretty much charge whatever they want for it.  You'd think they'd rather sell the ticket cheap than leave the seat empty, but they have people who need to be rebooked and sometimes people who buy the ticket at the very last minute, so they don't actually know that the seat will be empty.

However, I have definitely seen prices fluctuate over time in the long term.  Aside from extremely in-demand holiday travel, very rarely have I seen the price a year out be the absolutely lowest it will be, because there are usually sales at some point.

[incognitotoday]

How does this Yapta thing work?

[hz80408]

Aug 27, 2013 13:53:09 GMT -5 incognitotoday said:

How does this Yapta thing work?

It's pretty much the same as kayak and owned by the same parent company. Select personal travel, search your flight and once you find one (or several), track each of them. You can get daily tracking info emailed to you.

I agree with others that I think the myth of Tues/Wed flight pricing is cheaper on those days, etc.  It's really just tracking and knowing the trend to be able to identify a good deal when you see it

[Deleted]

I also search kayak, set up fare alerts, and prefer to buy through the airline.

Flight prices can change dramatically. I usually buy 9 months out or so for expensive airfare. I watch it for a month or two first. Anecdote: for our trip to Ireland (leaving tomorrow), I bought our airfare in November. I set up a fare alert on kayak, and the airfare was hovering between 800-900. I got an alert that it was down to 550. I bought them, and the next day they were back in the 800 range and have stayed there ever since.

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2013 18:14:07 GMT -5 @travelbug1210 said:

I also search kayak, set up fare alerts, and prefer to buy through the airline.

Flight prices can change dramatically. I usually buy 9 months out or so for expensive airfare. I watch it for a month or two first. Anecdote: for our trip to Ireland (leaving tomorrow), I bought our airfare in November. I set up a fare alert on kayak, and the airfare was hovering between 800-900. I got an alert that it was down to 550. I bought them, and the next day they were back in the 800 range and have stayed there ever since.

Well done!

Have a great trip!

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2013 19:29:01 GMT -5 v said:

Aug 27, 2013 18:14:07 GMT -5 @travelbug1210 said:

I also search kayak, set up fare alerts, and prefer to buy through the airline.

Flight prices can change dramatically. I usually buy 9 months out or so for expensive airfare. I watch it for a month or two first. Anecdote: for our trip to Ireland (leaving tomorrow), I bought our airfare in November. I set up a fare alert on kayak, and the airfare was hovering between 800-900. I got an alert that it was down to 550. I bought them, and the next day they were back in the 800 range and have stayed there ever since.

Well done!

Have a great trip!

Thanks! It's my go-to example when extolling the virtues of fare alerts and early booking.

OP - I forgot to mention, the other website I use sometimes in Vayama. 

[gt7301b]

For domestic airfare I also check southwest because their flights don't show up on sites like kayak.

I also sign up for daily alerts from airfarewatchdog and the weekly travelzoo tips. We usually do one big trip a year and I just look for what is on sale, we have a list of places we want to go and when some place pops up I book it. The last four years we have gone to Australia, Spain, Italy, and Alaska all because they were the best deals I could get.

[incognitotoday]

Thank You for all the ideas.

[travelingturtle]

You can usually wait until 2 months prior and when you see a good ticket price, get it. Once you hit the 2 month prior time frame the chances of the prices going down are unlikely. Most airlines actually try to oversell their flights by a certain percentage because they know people who bought their ticket won't show. They also "save" space for people who change their dates at the last minute. They don't really do genuine "fill up this flight" type of sales. If they started a lot of people would wait for the last minute.