how far ahead to buy tickets?

[Robrph]

A question for those who book their own flights when cruising: how early do you book your flights? I'm looking at fares for December and they have come down about 10% in the last week, probably for the same reason gas prices have gone down recently. While I don't want to wait until the last minute and maybe not get seats on the flights I want, I will be real upset if the fares come down a lot in the next few weeks. This is what happened to me just last week on flights I bought for July through Delta. Since they are "non-refundable", it costs $50-75 to make a change, which isn't worth it. How far in advance do you buy tickets?

 

Rob

[SWEETNLOW2005]

The tickets probably will not go down for Dec. Depending on what dates. Due to the holiday season. More than likely they will go up.

[SouthernCaribbean]

A question for those who book their own flights when cruising: how early do you book your flights? I'm looking at fares for December and they have come down about 10% in the last week, probably for the same reason gas prices have gone down recently. While I don't want to wait until the last minute and maybe not get seats on the flights I want, I will be real upset if the fares come down a lot in the next few weeks. This is what happened to me just last week on flights I bought for July through Delta. Since they are "non-refundable", it costs $50-75 to make a change, which isn't worth it. How far in advance do you buy tickets?

 

Rob

 

I would hold off on buying anything that is outside of your budget. Looks like you are needed tickets for the first 2 weeks of Dec. That is one of the slowest travel weeks of the year. Its between Thanksgiving and Christmas and most people dont travel as often.

 

Regardless of what happens with the price of crude oil, airlines have to either fill planes or cancel flights. So if they cant fill the planes at these higher prices they will have to lower fares or cancel empty flights.

 

Sign up for farewatcher on Travelocity and keep checking.

[KruznKel]

I have purchased for March 2006 with Delta already.. the price has already gone up within a week since I purchased last week... plus I am a Canuck and the dollar was higher last week so I gained LOL in my eyes anyways!!!

[jeb9860]

I am waiting a while for December flights. Most of the cheap flights are with US Airways and I am too scared to buy them. I am waiting for USA3000 who haven't released their prices yet as well as Southwest. If I see a good price in the next month I'll probably buy. We leave on Dec 17 and return Dec30 so I don;t want to leave it too long as getting flights back might be hard.