Best/Cheapest time to buy plane tickets to England for March travel

As part of your purchase process, you might go to Yapta.com. They don't sell tickets, but they will track ticket prices for your planned dates and let you know when prices drop.

Ticket prices often become more attractive starting about 60 days before departure, but there are no guarantees of that, and waiting can sometimes mean that the best flights fill up and you could face undesirable takeoff or arrival times.

Patrick'ss right on. Generally speaking the airlines solidify prices, etc by around 6mos out. Then between there and 3 mos, good prices are around. After that, they start to go up. Patrick is right, that more than 60 days out is a good idea, as is using Yapta.

The best strategy is to do your research, and find a price you like. Keep an eye on it. If you see the price get close to it, grab it! You'll be glad you did.

PS - British Air traditionally does big fare sales in January, that allow travel through part of March.

We've always traveled in March to England and Germany and have bought our tickets in November. I usually start looking in October but have always found good deals within the first week of November. Be sure and check British Airways along with the US carriers, we flew them 2 years ago and got a really good deal not to mention they are very comfortable.

I am heading to Paris and flying back from Dublin in April 2010 and have already purchased my tickets for $800 directly with American Airlines. Last year I waited until 4 months out to get a flight to Rome and that was $1100. Boooo. You just have to keep on looking. Good luck.

We bought our tickets in Jan. through British Airlines and got 3 nights free in London, They have specials all the time, check out ba.com.

Thank you to everyone for all of your advice so far. It has really been helpful. It's great to be able to communicate and get helpful hints from those that have been there before. Thanks so much.

You might sign up with Kayak.com to get daily or weekly notifications of the lowest airfares for your route by email. For the past two years we traveled to London for spring break in March. I started tracking airfares in the fall and when the prices dropped in very early January I knew to grab the tickets. Good luck!

Airgorilla.com and airfarewatchdog.com also tracks fares and had good advise.

Have you tried airlineconsolidator.com? I was more than a little nervous but tried them anyway and got a great deal. I just checked using MCI as your departure city and the best deal they're showing is $811. Be sure to check multiple combinations of departure and arrival airports. If you find a good deal, check the airline website before you book. In this case USAir's ticket is $899 for Gatwick but only $802 to fly into Heathrow. The best deals I've found have been 3-4 months out. Start looking now. Sign up for airfarewatchdog.com and yapta and check this website daily. Also,sign up for notices from the airlines. When they add new routes they have specials to those cities. So if you're planning to travel from London north, you may get a good deal on Manchester and reverse your trip. I'm planning to go also but probably later in the spring or early fall. Have fun planning your trip!