Is There A Best Time To Book Flights? No, But Use These Tricks...

The best time to book a trip is when agencies are closed!

Pretty spot on advice. Some additional tips I have.

1. Get to know average fares for the routes you want to fly. And be realistic. 400 RT for a F class transatlantic trip with full refundability is not realistic. When you see a drop and you are ok with the change/cancel restrictions. Go for it. And yes. Use the rebook feature to get additional credits later if it does drop.
2. Choose the right pattern for you….if you value flexibility and able to cancel. Adjust expectations as such. A cheap fare may not be a good deal if you lose it based on restrictions
3. Look at what you are bringing. The higher fare may be cheaper in the end! Baggage is expensive on Y fares. May push you up to F class range anyway. Don’t forget about seat selection fees too. Do the math.

But yes. There is no perfect day to book. But peak travel I say about 2-3 months out is the sweet spot. And 30-60 days for non peak travel. But this can all change with seat sales and what not. The advice is to keep looking regularly.

You know what would be great... if Google Flights, and also AA would let you block basic economy fares from searches. I'm not going to book basic, I'm going to give them more money. Why do they make this difficult on me?!

Wait until a few more wars are started and a few more barriers are erected against travel, and fares will come down even more. Fewer people feel like traveling every day, and more businesses are trying to avoid bankruptcy by cutting budgets. Even those with valid documents want to avoid airport confrontations with government goons.

I usually add a carry-on bag when searching and that tends to exclude a lot of basic economy fares (not all of them, of course).

I vote in favour of booking short notice. Itś worth contextualizing that Iḿ flying short haul in Europe, with a healthy appetite for budget airlines, but having the tracking on on Google Flights, itś normally never worth booking more than a month in advance, and most of my flights are nearer the 2 week mark.

At least on AA and booking in advance T/W are the cheaper days. Not 100% of the time but definitely in general. Saturday and Friday can be a crapshoot. Ditto booking earlier generally yields better results than booking close in.

I almost always use miles & put a reminder on my calendar to manually reprice all my open res monthly. I almost always can make 1-2 favorable changes

I tend to ignore the calendar when booking a flight. That is, I'll book the flight as soon as I know where and when I/we are going. BUT...the key (for me) is that I continue to re-check the price approximately every 2-4 weeks or so to see if, and take advantage of, price drops. If so, I will re-book at the (new) lower price.

In general, I save my miles/points for international travel in business class, but I'll often price out. in points as well as cash, longer coast-to-coast flights (e.g.: SFO-JFK, SFO-BOS, SFO-MIA, etc.). There are occasionally times when buying the tix using points will make sense.

Anyone else have troubles getting the google fare alert emails? I sign up for them but never get the email.

'Nowadays many airlines no longer have change or cancelation fees on most types of tickets.'

That's an exaggeration if I have ever seen one. Not only do I not think there are any airlines based outside of the USA/Canada that do this, the introduction of 'light'/'basic' fares across booking classes in economy and increasingly even in business means that quite a few airlines are selling increasing numbers of tickets which can't even be changed against a penalty.

Have you been able to take advantage of those fare drops with any non-US airlines? I do follow this approach with hotels, but I can never find cheap refundable tickets.

@Ross,

I have been waiting for these drops and don't see them as yet. Who do I need to speak to for them to get a move on?

I am planning a trip to Paris next April, I am hoping AF would drop First to $4K -$5K as the current $18K doesn't work for me.

There's an Aeromexico fare from Spain to Mexico and back in business class for €1340. Saudia continue to offer great deals to Asia ex-TUN. Flying from N. America, Avianca will take you all the way from ORD to SCL and back for just $1740, AT are selling Toronto to CMN for$1630.

In the back of the bus, QR are selling flights between Europe and Vietnam for just €500 return, similar fares are available on TP to Brazil...

Not sure it's worth waiting for Air France to sell P tickets for $5k when the above deals are available. It's almost always better value to splash out on luxurious experiences on the ground.

This is literally why Sky Key was invented. There is no best time to book flights, although people will try and predict, etc. They just get you money back when the price drops after you book. Way better than Google flights.

There is already a website that exists for this kind of thing called Sky Key. Automatically gets you money back every time your fare drops.

Yep have gotten $3500 back far from using them. Them and tripit are the only flight services worth paying for imo

@ Throwawayname,
About TP, I don't know out of US (I hardly doubt) but out of Europe TP has not one destination to Brazil for ~500€ (NEVER) and I know because I fly several times a month to GRU (which is the cheapest destination).

Has always worked for me. It is actually a reminder to delete that I am tracking a flight after I gave booked it. The email is not the default, you must check the box after you save the tracked flight.

On which airlines?

Not much use if you don't fly the just five airlines that they support.

@vJustin, don't hold your breath!

Are people taking advantage of lower fares by cancelling and rebooking? If so, are credits immediately available, at least on the major US carriers, rather than having to wait?