searching for air fares too soon?

[saleaaway]

Not traveling until next February. When is a good time to start to look for fares. I believe the earlier the better.

[sunlover5]

We are traveling to SJ from Cleveland, OH Feb. 22 and returning on March 4. I purchased our tickets last April 29 to be exact for 351.00 pp. They have not gone down at all and I checked yesterday and the same flights were 628.00 pp. When flights come out for your dates and you feel they are a good deal, times and dates are right, I say go for it!!!!!!!

[paul929207]

AIR schedules & prices are available about 330 days in advance. Note that you have to wit till return flight(s) are available to book a round trip.

 

 

Paul

[parody]

Well, in part, it depends on whether "low cost carriers" are a viable option. Some LCC's have a 6 month window whereas for Southwest Airlines it can be as short as 3 months. So, you can either wait until their schedules open up or do a proxy check on what their fares might be now and compare them to those being offered by more standard, legacy carriers.

[old manatee]

If you are going to fly out on President's week, I would wait. I'm booked for this year. I checked for flights from Charlotte to San Juan. US Air was going to be at least $900, so I booked the cruise air. Bad mistake. The same US air flight is now about $300 for a direct flight. I'm flying cruise air on 2 different airlines with bad times.:mad: I still may opt for a one way fair going down for about $150 with taxes and fees.

[JJPNYC]

I would start looking at fares now so you have a sense of what a "good" fare is.

And then once the booking window opens, you can act when you see a fare and flight that fits your needs.

 

As noted, the legacy airlines open up booking about 330 days outs. Southwest only opens up bookings about 3-6 months advance. So you may have to figure out if it is worth booking on the legacy airlines now or wait it out for when Southwest & the other discounters put their tickets on sale.

 

I would also check out farecast.com to get a sense for the range of prices using February 2007 flight dates as a reference point (they can only forecast 90 days out and at least you can benchmark vs. what fares are now for seasonality).