Booking airfare for 2018

Planning our Alaska trip for July 2018. When do you book airfare? As soon as schedule and dates open ?

Trying to plan the land portion and we are a little flexible with our dates depending on prices. But i don't want to wait to long so we can get our lodging and excursions for the land portion booked.

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You are best to track fares, set an amount you will pay, then purchase. There is no magic formula, AND everything is hindsight with the "best" time claims. There isn't any.

I have already booked for May 2018. In the weeks leading up to the relevant date being released I monitored fares that were already released and how they changed. Alaska Airlines fares typically seemed to drop a day or 2 after they were released and this was the case for what I booked too. I do agree with setting an amount you will pay and then purchasing. I had quite fixed dates and times, so jumped in as soon as they were what I was expecting and I feel comfortable knowing it's all confirmed and not having to stress over getting it sorted.

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I usually fly Alaska air as much as possible. I book my ticket as soon as I feel comfortable with the price..BUT...I watch the price pretty regularly and if it goes down, I complete the online price guarantee and get the difference put into my Alaska Airlines wallet. By the time I take my booked flights I usually have money in my wallet for the next flight. One time I got 350.00 back on a Hawaii flight....used that for my next Hawaii flight. Alaska Air is the best!!

There is a wonderful website called Yapta.com that I have used in the past. You tell it when and where you want to travel and it will keep track of plane ticket prices. It will send you an email when the prices change. Also, I would suggest buying your tickets directly from the airline and not a third party. That way, if there is a problem, you can go through the airline. My daughter's mother-in-law very recently had all sorts of problems with seating assignments being changed at the last minute for flights and they have a 4 year old. They had used a third party travel agent and it was a real mess. Thankfully, the airline was able to straighten things out but, for a while there, they were all separated on the flights!

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Another great app for watch prices is Hopper. The symbol is a rabbit shape. It predicts prices and makes recommendations when the best time to buy is. I recently used it for our flight back home from Whitehorse after our cruise. It was dead on!

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Another great app for watch prices is Hopper. The symbol is a rabbit shape. It predicts prices and makes recommendations when the best time to buy is. I recently used it for our flight back home from Whitehorse after our cruise. It was dead on!

 

 

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Thanks for this. That AP looks great. I hope it works.

Prices do seem better on Alaskan Air than they do on Jet Blue, but I am wondering how comfort and entertainment (I like JetBlue TV) compares on long flights.

Thank you all for your input.

For us Jetblue is not an option.

Currently Delta is hundreds less than Alaska Airlines. And that is using flexible dates ( which we are somewhat flexible) and flying out of Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte or Cincinnati. As we are 2.5-4 hrs driving distance to all 4 of those cities.

Best price so far is out of Nashville connecting in Seattle then on to Anchorage . RT IS $2300 with credit card discount.

And since I originally posted we have nixed doing a cruise( for 2018 anyway). We have decided on doing 8-10 days in Alaska. My family voted against the cruise. [emoji853]

Fingers crossed when the July dates open up I will see much of the same.

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Have been going to Alaska for 20+ years during the months of June and July(fishing). The airlines will sometimes lower their fares late Sept. or early Oct. when the state issues their PFD checks. I always fly Alaska Air because if the fare does go down you can contact them and get a credit for future flights. They also are a great airline to deal with.

Check out the Alaska Airlines-branded Visa card from B of A. In addition to a bunch of frequent flyer miles at signup (and Alaska's is an excellent FF program) you'll get an annual $99 ($121 after taxes) companion certificate good on any Alaska Airlines flights. One person pays the going rate, the other pays $121. Add 'em up and divide by two (for the average) and see how it stacks up against the competition. Both passengers earn full FF miles for the flights.

Our cruise is in June 2018, and I booked within a day of them opening up, and feel I got a good price. I'd been doing mock bookings of june 2017 prices for several months, and it seemed like the "last minute" prices were way higher than what I ended up paying, 11 months out.

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I've found the same, though I'm not as confident that that applies to coach as it very clearly applies to first class. With coach, I do believe that there could be sales 9 months prior that may save a bit, but that's not the case for first class.

I also have found, from tracking the last few weeks, that it seemed that for the flights we need the lowest fares were achieved by purchasing one-ways rather than a roundtrip, and specifically because there are only a couple of seats available with the lowest fares for the category and they are generally gone within hours of the flight becoming available. If you want until 7 days later when you can book your return, you're out of luck. Whatever benefit there is from the roundtrip gets eaten up by that differential and more.

Oh- I should mentioned I was price checking delta, both normal and comfort class (didn't look at business class). Comfort class ended up being only $100 more per person, so we did that (long flight + tall DH)

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Our cruise is in June 2018, and I booked within a day of them opening up, and feel I got a good price. I'd been doing mock bookings of june 2017 prices for several months, and it seemed like the "last minute" prices were way higher than what I ended up paying, 11 months out.

 

 

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That is what i am seeing as well. Although we just decided on this trip about 5-6 weeks ago. I was doing mock bookings for august 2017 at first and then have been using June dates as they open up. Since we are flexible i want to get our flights booked first and then get our lodging reservations done.

And it does make a difference pricing wise if you "clear your cookies" first.

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Oh- I should mentioned I was price checking delta, both normal and comfort class (didn't look at business class). Comfort class ended up being only $100 more per person, so we did that (long flight + tall DH)

 

 

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That is nice you were able to upgrade! We normally fly Southwest so my family will just have to settle with economy class lol. I am saving our $$$'s for a private glacier/whale watch excursion. Either or is about 8 hours of comfort or discomfort [emoji6]

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Planning our Alaska trip for July 2018. When do you book airfare? As soon as schedule and dates open ?

Trying to plan the land portion and we are a little flexible with our dates depending on prices. But i don't want to wait to long so we can get our lodging and excursions for the land portion booked.

 

 

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My T/A told me that most airlines open up their airfare 331 days out. We use Delta and have our Alaska cruise July 13th and I can book our beginning; however, it will be next several more days before I can see the return info.

My T/A told me that most airlines open up their airfare 331 days out.

I booked as soon as it became available, I watched prices and they only went up. They about doubled. Can't say that would happen overtime, but I booked what I thought was a reasonable price for flights that were well times and it turned out I bet right.

When a time was changed on a return flight, I was even able to swap days with no charge since it was an airline change.

I just pushed Delta, but they would absolutely not consider moving us to a non-stop even though they made a schedule change that made our connection illegal.