How long do you wait to book airfare?

Generally found sweet spot to be about 6 weeks out unless extremely under booked. Always read to book on tuesday or wednesday as new prices come on tuesday morning.

Airlines know that March is spring break for most people outside of Louisiana (unless Easter falls in March). Rates to Florida are always ridiculous in March. You may have to go in late April or May to get a more affordable rate.

Generally found sweet spot to be about 6 weeks out unless extremely under booked. Always read to book on tuesday or wednesday as new prices come on tuesday morning.
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This. The 6/7 week window is the best.

Car rental way in advance or 1-2 days out. They look to move sitting inventory.

Right now delta flight prices across the country are out of control. The only rational thing that I can think of is that they have a significant build up of expiring credits that people need to use. That coupled with still lower than pre-COVID seats available means their rev management department see an opportunity to increase revenue given finite supply.

I am a 9 year in a row delta Diamond and have never seen price differences between delta and the other majors be as large. Sure some specific routes have had variances but right now every route seems to be a few hundred dollars higher. It is actually going to squeeze the business traveler who has to follow pricing requirements out of flying delta. I think the short term gain of revenue may really adversely impact them down the road because their service is no longer as differentiated in the market.

It's funny looking at Christmas week flights at $800/one-way for ft Lauderdale to Seattle. I had a schedule change and rebooked to mid afternoon PBI-ATL-SEA and there's no one on it. I bet prices come down but it will be a few weeks before Christmas. People aren't buying at these prices, cheaper to drive in a lot of cases

Bumping my own 2 year old thread here just to comment that I paid last night $722/ticket for 2 round trip tickets from CVG to FLL on a non stop route, so 2 - 2 hour flights. And that's just main cabin.

Ugh.

quote:

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I don’t want to burst your bubble but did you look at Allegiant? About $200 round trip CVG to FLL. Not sure your time of year.

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Yep. I have flown allegiant a few times, never had a problem, but their route dates and times are spotty. I did price them out for this trip, and for the times they had available, by the time you added baggage and other fees, it was going to be about $600 a ticket for everything, plus I would have to pay for dog boarding for another day, and spend another full day in FLL. Yes, it would have saved me $240 in plane fare, but I would have probably spent most of them in activity costs for the day in FLL and another night of boarding.

I just find it in insane that for $1442 I got main cabin seating for 2 2 hour flights. Seems everytime I want to fly, it costs me a fortune.


Edit to add rant: I have a Delta platinum card, so I get the companion fare certificate, but I rarely get to use it without simply taking a trip somewhere it works, can rarely use it on trips I actually want to. Seems sort of a scam, but I look at it that if I fly 3 times a year, it pays for the annual fee in baggage fees.