Very generally, buy on Tuesday and fly on Tuesday with a Saturday layover. For international travel, purchase about 2 months out. Other than that, just track prices and buy when they’re in your range.
Chen said:
Very generally, buy on Tuesday and fly on Tuesday with a Saturday layover. For international travel, purchase about 2 months out. Other than that, just track prices and buy when they’re in your range.
I like to buy on a Wednesday and fly out on a Friday or Tuesday.
@Chris
Perfect.
I have a coworker that used to deal with adjusting ticket prices. I can’t speak for every airline, but he said generally about a month out is the best time. He said when you try to buy too far in advance, only the most expensive fares are available; as it gets closer to date of departure, they open up the cheaper fares.
Just a tip when you do get your ticket. When you get your ticket, there’s going to be a lot of options (times) and the closer you get to your travel date, your itinerary will have changed many times since the options of flights will be much less. Keep an eye since you might not like the re-routes or time change from the airline. I had a trip that had a layover and AA missed to update my connection flight. Also, keep an eye on the time of between connections (3 hours is usually good, but delays & distance of gates can cause an issue).
Whenever it hits your price point. I bought tickets last month for September 2025 because it hit the price I wanted to spend.
Wednesdays I’ve bought many tickets over the years and I find buying on Wednesdays and not on a holiday is the best time to buy a plane ticket, and sometimes I can find a first-class ticket for the same price as economy.
As early as possible.
All the pre-Covid advice about timing the purchase is out of date.
Airlines are so much better now at revenue management and matching capacity with demand. This coupled with the overall demand increase means that airlines rarely if ever lower prices as the date gets closer.