When to buy plane tickets?

You don't say where in Ohio you're wanting to fly from and where you want to fly to in Europe. June's Summer airfares are quite expensive, and you may can save somewhat if you were able to go the last few days of May.
Airfares are controlled by supply and demand, and the airlines pricing analysts are quite good at manipulating the number of seats available to maximize revenues. I have seen airfares drop after the first of the year--after Christmas vacations.
I generally watch matrix.itasoftware.com for airfares once or twice a week--coming up with a baseline airfare to look for. If an airfare suddenly drops, that's when I buy.
For a June flight, you'd probably want to buy by March.

If you are using miles for 1 of your 3 tickets, better do it now before that window closes. Assume you mean 1 of 3 people traveling, or do you mean 1 of 3 legs?

For miles, do it ASAP. These can be limited and "sell out" quickly. If you mean one of the three people in your group will be using miles, then the other two should purchase the same flight fairly soon after - so it doesn't fill up and you can get seats together. Keep an eye on how full it's getting and the cost.

Cost really fluctuates. In other years I've bought about 4 months ahead - so February for June. But this year I looked early and saw great rates about 10 months ahead - so I bought in early September for May/June. Sometimes early rates are very high - because not a lot of people buy a year ahead - but lately I've seen excellent fares far in the future. So if you use your miles to get a ticket ASAP, your family may have good luck buying their tickets at the same time.

One odd quirk - often I've seen lower fares when I purchase on a Saturday or Sunday as opposed to a weekday. That is - the actual day I go to the airline website and buy the ticket, not the day the flight is on.

The day of the week the flight is on can also have an effect, but I haven't seen a pattern. If your dates are a bit flexible, look at flying on different days of the week. Thursday may be cheaper than Tuesday or vice versa.

There is no magic time. If there was, everyone would do it and then it would not be magic. In general, but not always, we find earlier is better. Track the fares for a while and buy when it hits a price your like. Do not be fixated on buying the cheapest ticket. Little like buying stock. It is very rare to actually buy at the lowest price. But some do get lucky.

You have an additional wrinkle of matching a ff ticket. For a ff ticket it has to be reserved as early as possible. I believe that ff tickets are release at the 330 day mark. So you are already behind for June. United is easy to use and has the chart for available tickets on available days. If you are wanting to fly with the ff person, then you options are limited to United so start tracking the tickets and be prepared to pull the trigger soon.

For mileage tickets you are already late. Those open up 330 days in advance and low mile tickets to popular destinations go quick. Get working on that NOW and if you can find something that works book it.

Hi Jill -

We missed the window a few years ago to book tickets on miles with American. We ended up using the miles for hotels and that worked for our family since we booked some nice hotels. That's what we did and others may not agree. We probably could have booked 330 days out and found tickets that worked but we decided to go and had less days than that.

But, keep searching and looing for deals. I found a great deal from British Airways recently from advice found on this website so keep looking!

Happy Travels!
Amy