When to book plane tickets

You don't say when you'll be returning home from Lisbon. But I'm seeing 6/12/2022 flights returning in 14 days in the low $500's. But these are not non-stop flights. Some of the return flights have long layovers unless you jump up to $585 airfare flights.

Nonstop flights to and from Lisbon are just over $1,000.

Newark flights are about the same price. I checked Philadelphia flights, and they're more expensive.

When you can book an airfare for half the normal prices, it's time to buy it. And often flying from smaller area airports will get you a lower airfare even if you have to fly through your local airport.

I research flights on Matrix ITA Software and filter it by "See calendar for lowest fares".

It is no longer the $64,000 question, it now $64m. Who knows? This is the new world of post or nearly post pandemic. Prior to the pandemic the airlines had a lot of surplus capacity especially on the European routes. While flying a seat at $500 may not have covered costs, it was better than an empty seat. So there was competition and -- for the most part -- we understood the airline pricing and patterns. Going forward -- who knows? Currently the number of flights and associated capacity has been sharply reduced at the same time that demand has jumped. The need to discount potentially empty seats is not there. I would seriously consider booking now. It is hard to forecast tickets trends because there is limited prior experience for the current situation. The gamble your are facing is that the plane will be packed and your seat selection may be very limited if you wait till the end for the price to drop.

Thanks Dave,
We know the airline (Virgin) and the (nonstop) flight (7:45 PM). It is the TIMING of the purchase we are trying to optimize. We are looking for advice in the trends in pricing. Do they go down and then back up? Or vice versa.
Or is there no correlation and we should just as well pounce now as wait for later?

My gut tells me that in the COVID world, "Past performance is not an indicator of future results"
Dennis

Frank,
I tend to agree

Dennis

Go with your gut. We live next door to a retired Delta captain. He retired prior to the on set of the pandemic but many of his friends took the incentives to retire early when Delta started reducing staff two years ago. And now they just don't have the pilot pool to bring more flights on line. And it is not just pilots but other front line workers. One issue is that had a fair number of semi-retired workers who simply enjoyed working a couple of days a week while retire. They are gone and have no interested in being exposed to the general public --- marks or no masks.

I generally book 4-6 months out. There's no way to know what direction(s) fares will move between now and June. If you see a good fare now on a routing that works for you, I'd say go for it. And don't look back -- it could get lower, or higher, in the coming months, but no point driving yourself crazy about it.

Or is there no correlation and we should just as well pounce now as wait for later?
My gut tells me that in the COVID world, "Past performance is not an indicator of future results"

A question like yours has been asked many times. It's almost like asking, 'the Lotto drawing is Saturday; are my odds of buying the winning ticket better if I buy on Tuesday or Wednesday'.

I think you have come up with as good an answer as any

Thanks all,
I think we have arrived at a consensus; just buy the damned tickets and don't overthink it.

Dennis

If they are a decent price, I'd buy them. I went to Portugal in August last year, those tickets were bought way in advance, prior to the vaccine and the declaring of the next US president. Got a really sweet deal with flexibility of only paying 1/3 of the price that they would normally be. Travel was uncertain, so the tickets were especially cheap.

I just purchased tickets to Lisbon a couple of week ago for April travel. Also got a good deal and can always cancel them if not wish to travel for a refundable voucher.

People are still a bit nervous because of Omicron, but countries are starting to drop requirements for entry. The US airlines are putting pressure on the US government to drop the Covid Testing requirement. When that happens, my guess is that those tickets you are looking at for June are going to jump in price. People are tired of being home, and once they feel comfortable traveling, they are going to take those long awaited vacations.

I have been checking prices on flights from JAX to East Africa for our July safari. Prices have dropped by about 10% in the past two days.

Still, Delta won't let me use Skymiles on the trip, not sure why.

I think sometimes it's helpful to ask yourself: "How much lower could that price reasonably go? How much higher?" If there seems to be more potential for a fare increase than for a fare drop, that's sort of a warning signal. And the fact that you are only interested in a Virgin Atlantic flight is another factor that I think tends to argue for grabbing a decent fare if you see one.

The other thing that I've been looking at when looking for tickets for our flights in August is the "change with no fee" policy of each airline. I'm thinking "what if" the stupid virus gets another crazy variant and our tour gets cancelled. Will we be able to change our flight to a different date without a change fee like we did in 2020 when our trip got cancelled. I'm busy sorting through not only the best fares and best schedules, but also which fares are changeable or refundable.

We'll be flying from Denver to Oslo, then returning to Denver from Rome. Does anyone have a favorite airline? We've flown IcelandAir a couple of times in the past, but I want to look around more. While I know how to do a multi-city reservation, I'm also open to booking one-way flights on different airlines.

Thanks!

Dennis,
Prior to COVID19, we generally purchased our airline tickets early, about 10 months in advance. Now, with the COVID19 uncertainties, we are waiting longer. We have a safari in E. Africa in July and still haven't purchased tickets.

Recently, ticket prices have dropped by 10%, I am tempted to purchase, but may wait a little longer. Delta had a policy in 2021 the allowed refunding tickets, but that has expired and buying refundable tickets now adds about 25% to the cost of the ticket.

I have half a million sky miles, but Delta won't allow me to use it on our safari trip. Not sure why, but that makes me a bit angry.
Another poster send me a message saying she had the option when at the purchase phase to use 100K sky miles to save $1000. Perhaps that will be available to me when I purchase?

I took my Delta ticket to purchase and was NOT offered the choice of trading 100,000 sky miles for $1000 in cost of the tickets.

Just FYI I could not find any mileage tickets that covers two from LA to LHR with on BA until October! Had to go out of ORD. So at least mileage tix are getting tighter on some routes and some airlines

On the topic of Delta, I purchased tickets thru KLM to get their refundable voucher offer, but flying on a Delta plane. This is for my "maybe" trip in April. Feels odd to me, since I would normally purchase the tickets from Delta, but they weren't offering any flexibility for the price I was willing to pay.

geovagriffith - I suspect your final leg is not on Delta metal, and award tickets on non-Delta operated flights are not available. I just booked our seats to Cairo through Delta and last leg is on Air France. No award availability but DeltaOne was less than $3k so I'm satisfied. One day hopefully I'll get to use my 300k + SkyPesos. Two times pre-covid I caught sale fares of 80-90k miles for a DeltaOne seats to Europe. Maybe I'll live to see that again.

When all the stars ailing, desired airline, desired departing and arrival airports, desired length (non-stop or if layovers then desired layover time frame, my minimum is 2 hours), the time of the flight and the price...then I purchase. If the price is really right I may have some wiggle room on time of the flight (we like to not have to spend more on hotel the night before for an early flight) and maybe I will consider a layover.

Celeste--

You have hope... if you fly in/out of Delta non-stop transatlantic destinations. I picked up two 70,000 mile award tickets from Delta about 6 weeks ago for an April trip. Open jaw itinerary out of GSP -- to Paris, return from Frankfurt. I think it was 60,000 in/out of Frankfurt.

Dave - I am greedy. I want front of the plane for my 80k miles! :-D

Hi Dennis, I’ve had good luck with the 65-day rule which maintains ( at least in pre-Covid times) that the airlines will slash fares 65 days prior to departure in order to sell out international flights. The theory goes that in pre-Covid times the airline computer algorithms project the average customer looking for a ticket 5-6 months in advance is likely to go ahead and buy it. The airline can ask more for the ticket six months in advance ( providing the airline isn’t cash-strapped as many have been during the past two years). Being flexible and willing to buy tickets on flights with one stop or more en route to your destination opens up the chances of scoring a bargain ticket.

I fly out of San Diego which has very limited non-stop international routes. More common are routes with one stop en-route. Even more common are routes with two stops. So when I see a relative non-stop or one-stop bargain I’ll buy it, even if it’s months in advance. If I wait too long, the preferred non-stop flights will likely be sold out. Then I have to look at flying out of Los Angeles. Since you’re traveling from the highly-competitive market of New York to Europe, I think you likely will be able to score a deal using the 65-day rule.
Unless, of course, everyone decides to travel to Europe this year!

Celeste—

I missed the Delta One part of your comment. I made it to Delta One on my 70,000 tickets, but did it by applying global upgrade certificates in January, before their Feb 1 devaluation. The best I’ve seen lately for Delta One transatlantic flights is 200K. The best I was seeing this time last year, though, was 370K. Maybe it will keep trending down. Delta is still giving Medallion Qualification Miles and Medallion Qualification Dollars for reward travel this year, which may contribute to the current inflated award ticket redemptions. I noticed the cheaper redemptions right now tend to be on flights not eligible for MQMs and MQDs. In a recent federal filing, Delta said around 10% of passengers right now are traveling on reward tickets, which likely contributes, too.