When to Purchase Airfare?

Allison, don't fret. You have plenty of time! Check out the transportation forum on the Traveler's Helpline homepage, as there are other threads with similar questions. I love to plan things WELL in advance, so if you are like me, I know you are chomping at the bit to nail down the details. But airfare can be tricky. My one suggestion, which helped me quite a bit, is to check out open jaw travel as a way to both save money AND make the most of your time (if you are covering multiple cities). I actually got some help from the Alitalia reservation agent on the phone because she made some suggestions regarding days of travel and departure cities to further save money. I bought my ticket 9 months in advance and, despite checking from time to time, haven't seen the price for the same exact route change! Other people will tell you about HUGE swings but, in my case, I didn't. I'm glad because I would have been kicking myself otherwise. Good luck and happy travels.

Make sure you're getting travel alerts from Delta, American, etc. plus Trip Advisor and be ready to jump on a cheap airfaire when they do hit. Unless all the fuel surcharges drop, I'll bet a good RT fare is going to be about $800-$1000 total including taxes.

For June travel (peak season), unless you hit a GREAT sale exactly right, I wouldn't count on anything close to $800.....more like $1000-$1200 from Atlanta, by the time taxes and fuel surcharges are included. An $800 fare is a shoulder or low season fare. I'm generally satisfied that if I can get anywhere close to $1000 give or take for late spring through early fall travel that it is a fair price. International airfares have jumped quite a big % over the last 1-2 years. I think Kayak and Bing can send you alerts when fares change, so get signed up. Delta is the big dog around here, but I have seen some decent fares on US Airways, also, over the years.

You might tab back a few pages of postings, because this same question came up fairly recently with lots of discussion. Good luck.

Thank you all for your great comments. I have found the old thread and it was extremely helpful. I always plan way in advance so the wait will be killing me!!

Allison, Your post is a commonly raised question and, unless you have a crystal ball or ouija board, this is a most perplexing issue with no definitive answer. Use all of the alerts mentioned above and check frequently with the airline websites. Look Tuesdays after midnight for the changes and when you find a price you can live with...buy the tickets...and then stop looking because it will only drive you crazy. If your goal is to save the last dime you will be engaged in a futile activity. I have traveled in Italy for 31 years and if I want to go badly enough I bite the bullet, spend the money to buy the ticket, and I do not compare any more.

Well said, RB! IF IF IF you can apply a formula to it, I have read that the "optimal" time to expect a decent sale and/or buy a ticket tends to fall between 2 and 5 months of the anticipated travel date. That's still a pretty darn big window! But the "numbers guys" (or computers) in the airline revenue management department have managed to create a formula that is somehow well beyond the scope of a simple supply and demand economy in a system that seems to defy logic, and the early bird could just as easily choke on the worm as come away satisfied! I wouldn't hesitate to book hotels, although you may find that not all have "set" their summer 2012 rates yet) so you may indeed have a better shot at all of this in a couple of months. Just don't get locked into any non-refundable offers unless you are VERY confident you won't change your itinerary or travel dates. Best advice is to set the air and definitive hotels aside for the moment (only for a couple months). Settle for planning the destinations, route and research activities--give it a lot of thought and ask here for input on making it all flow well, other suggestions, etc. I'm sure many people buy their air tickets perhaps prematurely before they have a reasonable idea of the differences between how they WISH to spend their time and the REALITY of how the time/logistics will actually play out. This forum can really help with that. When the itinerary is reasonably well constructed, try to move ahead with air and zeroing in on your preferred hotels.