Aifare Timing for Athens

And I've read four months out is the best time. Who knows? My advice is always to find the "best" transatlantic flight you can get. Best, of course, is very subjective. If you can fly direct to Athens from your home airport, that might be best. If you have to connect anyway, take a look at booking separate tickets (or connecting by train or ferry). I use skyscanner.com, which allows you to search from your home airport to "anywhere." Maybe google flights does the same thing?

One very important tip, for whatever search website you use, is to do your browsing on the Private window of your Browser (also called "Anonymous window" I think, for PCs). That prevents the website from putting "Cookies" on your computer... which in future would "I-D" you. When you are "cookied", a website -- whether it be Skyscanner OR a specific airline -- automatically will NOT give you a lower rate than the first one you saw. For example, say, in December American Airlines quoted you $1500 round-trip. Then in Early February they had a short-term "bargain" rate of $1200 ... when you checked in Feb, they would not show it to you.

That being said, even so, lower rates from US - Greece are rarer than those living in UK or Europe, because there is so much more competition there.

Most airlines will start posting 10 months out for flights.

I've bought tickets that far out and I've bought tickets 2 months out based on my budget.

What you could do is put in price drop and/or alerts on several third party websites like Sky Scanner when you are planning to fly.

My credit card company lets me know when it's the best time to purchase a ticket or to wait based on price history.

Always purchase your ticket direct from the airlines rather than a third-party.

Who knows when the best time is other than what is based on your budget.

Thanks to all for the advice. I did notice that Google Flights had higher prices for airfares than what I found when I did searches on the individual airline sites. (Also playing with "incognito" and clearing cookies on my MacBook.) I notice that third-party sites use a marketing ploy, warning "only three seats left" on certain flights I'm looking at. When I've gone deep, looking into seat selections, the flights have all or 99% of their seats are unsold.

...warning "only three seats left"

Probably meaning 'at that price', not meaning just 3 seats left on the airplane.

@joe32F Right, but the three still remain available at the same high price after several weeks. Someone told me today that airlines haven’t settled on their ‘26 fares yet for various classes, so that’s why the high prices are just place holders. Plausible.

FYI: I already booked for 2026 at a very good price for non-stop from Boston to Athens.

I'm not sure how much the airlines (especially third party sites) play "games" with trying to get people to buy tickets or intimating that there's only so many seats left so better buy it now schemes are.

Knowing what prices have been in the past for my trips to Greece I felt it was as good as it was going to get considering everything continues to increase in price so I decided to buy the ticket.

The chance that it could go down is possible but on the other hand it probably won't and am happy with the price.

@tommyk5 I’m tempted to book a high premium economy fare that’s fully refundable, then pounce on a lower fare if/when it happens. But I might need a lawyer to go over the fine print.

jhillery:

If the price is within your budget and your are comfortable with it go for it.

I believe you may have to pay higher for something that is fully refundable but not sure as I'm willing to toss the dice with a non-refundable but changeable flight (i.e., change dates but not cancel)

I fly with Delta from Boston which for the last 3 years has offered non-stop flights which makes a big difference in a long day/flight but so much more convenient than having to get a transfer somewhere then go through the whole waiting around for the flight plus making an already long flight/day even longer.

For me it's worth the extra money.

However, I check for flights as soon as they are available and do so on a daily basis until I find what I feel is a good price but again it's a toss of the dice whether the cost will go down and by how much.

I'm ready for Greece again in 2026!

Most airlines have dynamic pricing built on complex algorithms. Generally speaking, tickets are expensive when they first become available, and then they get less expensive. Then prices go up and will continue to go up. And then at the last minute, tickets may either be cheap (and a good deal), or they may be exorbitant.

In other words, it's a crap shoot. Anyone thinking they know "the secret" in 2025 is either wrong or lying.

@edwardius, it's frustrating. Saw NBC News story over the weekend how Delta is experimenting with AI now to establish price points depending on what a customer is looking at for seat class of an airline ticket.

jhillery -- AI... just one MORE reason to always browse prices with private window on your Mac.