Another Look at the "When to Buy" Airfare Question - From 538

The article was published over two years ago and I question the relevance. Apart from that, I looked at R/T airfare from our small airport to Paris two weeks out, with a return two weeks thereafter. The fare was over $1900 and on multiple carriers. I can and do much, much better ignoring such articles and typically buying well in advance for flights to Europe, although there are occasions when airlines seem to toss out large numbers to test the market, so I use past purchases to help guide me to reasonable airfares.

My technique is to start early, maybe four or more months out, and consider all the options. I'll do searches for local airports as well as airports within reasonable distances from both departure and arrival points. I also consider prices if I move up or back a few days. Since the price of the ticket is directly related to demand, the price of a ticket to fly on Tuesday isn't always the same as the price of the same ticket to fly on Monday or Wednesday. I set up separate alerts for a wide range of options then watch prices for a few weeks. By then, I have a pretty good idea what a decent fare will be. If I spot a great price, I'll jump on it. If not, I'll wait it out awhile, then take a good price before the best itineraries sell out.

I did this for my trip to France coming up in September. Within a few weeks I found the range of prices for a round-trip coach seat from Northern Virginia to Paris was between just under $700 ($678) to about $1200. I then got an alert for a $500 flight. It's a Wow air flight that has one stop in Iceland. I checked it out carefully, but quickly, before I jumped on it. There are some additional charges that will probably add up to another $100 but the cheapest flights I had seen probably shared some of those charges. The overall flight time is about 10 hours, which isn't any worse than any other one-stop flight.

Sometimes there are choices I reject because of the long flight time or overnight layover - an example was last year I saw a very cheap price that flew to Moscow with a longish layover before returning to Western Europe, the time for the entire trip was something over 20 hours. Time is as important as money when you have limited vacation to use.

Thanks for posting the link. After looking at it, my thought is "don't believe everything you read." I start looking about 9 months out and buy when there is a good deal. But if people think there is a "formula" for getting a cheaper ticket they should obviously use it.