Do you notice airfares getting *less* expensive closer to travel dates?

Lower prices as the travel date approaches might be great if you to take the chance that you can get seven seats on one of those great flights. I haven't noticed that happening, but I haven't been watching like you have. No one can really predict (or even guess to any helpful degree) what will happen with prices. When you see one you like, take it. Seven seats is a lot to have to find on one flight if you wait too long.

This doesn't answer your question directly, but this week's NY Times Travel section does have an article on getting a refund if the price of your airline ticket goes down. http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/travel/how-to-get-refunds-when-you-book-travel.html?src=me&ref=travel

I will tell you of my experience booking open jaw flights for 6 to Athens and then home from Paris. We started looking 11 months out and everything was sky high. I took all the advice of news articles, etc to look on Tues and Weds. One Saturday morning about 7 months before our trip, I was up early and just decided to check prices on Delta for our plans. Lo and behold the price for the exact itinerary I really wanted had dropped more than 50%. I snagged the 6 tickets quick. I checked about once a week after that just out of curiousity and the price never even came within $400 of the price that I got. I don't know what kind of fluke happened on that Saturday but I am sure glad that I checked. So I guess my point is that you should try and check every day if you can. It sure save us a boat load of money. FYI the price finally dropped just a bit the last month before the trip but they were still above what we paid and of course there are VERY limited seats left--maybe one in each row in the extreme middle of long rows. Good Luck.

Yes, Nancy, you make a good point in that one never knows what will happen, and seat availability is of course a concern. Just wondered if others have noticed this trend. Bets, thanks for the article link! Laurie, I'm checking fares multiple times a day, knowing that sometimes one can hit the jackpot. So weird how that can happen. The last time my parents flew to Germany, my father by chance hit upon a small window of time (really only an hour!) when the fares on a particular carrier dropped dramatically. The shot-in-the-dark, hit-and-miss game is frustrating. (Though sometimes rewarding, as you experienced! : ) )

Well I've never noticed prices from Seattle going down as you get closer to the date, at least not for summer travel. We followed the advice of someone on this board to wait until two months ahead and really got burned. I bought at the high price and checked after that and they never went down. But we are picky about flights and only fly BA or KLM or others that fly directly to Europe. If you are willing to make a long flight with 2 changes instead of one, at weird times, then maybe you can find a deal. But then I would be concerned about seat availability. We prefer to book the best flight at reasonable cost ( usually around $1200 from Seattle to our destination) and cut corners elsewhere.

I agree with Sasha. We went last summer booked 4 mos. out and the fare was $400 less than anything closer to travel date. We are't traveling this summer, but I've been watching all year to see how prices change and I haven't seen any drops yet. Do you have fare alerts on Kayak? But, we are the type of travelers that need to do the flights as directly as possible, so I haven't really checked to see what would happen if we were willing to make multiple stops.

I say do not wait, buy now if you are generally OK w/ the fare espec with a summer trip. I have been at this european fare chase since 2000. I have spent 100's of hrs in "chasing"the fare w/ all the options of consolidators, so called airline sale fares etc. However,
If Air berlin works for you you might ck them for a fare. I see they are new to west coast fares to europe and perhaps you will snagged a fare that works for you. good luck!

Colleen,
We're planning a trip for May 2013 so I've been watching the fares for the last several months just for the fun of it. Now that we're 2 weeks out from when we hope to leave (next year), the fares have gone up by $1,000 so I would disagree that the fares as a rule are going down! I especially wouldn't wait when planning for 7.

I generally notice seats on the itinerary I want get sold and I'm stuck with choices that include two changes and long layovers (often at a higher price). Now I watch available seats and shop for prices, but buy at a decent price while there are still seats left on the flight I want.

Thanks for the additional replies. Like the rest of you, I've not noticed this trend before ~ prices getting lower, closer to departure date ~ which is why it caught my attention now. We fly out of Vancouver, BC, and I'm fairly ive about itineraries: one stop max, preferably in Europe. Over the years, we've flown KLM, SAS, Air Berlin, Edelweiss Air (Swiss Air affiliate that offers direct flights from YVR to ZRH), and British Air. The earliest we can fly out is mid-June, which is of course right when prices tend to tick up, unfortunately. Anyone able to leave before then has some good options, though. Fares for the next six weeks are averaging $1000, and again, many of those are very decent itineraries. Darcy, you can't yet look at May, 2013 on itasoftware, but the May, 2012 prices are reasonable, as I said just above.

Thought I'd update this now that I've purchased tix. I bought five weeks in advance, and fares were no more expensive then than they had been in the preceding months. I paid $1250 per person (and was able to get three tickets using Flexperk Rewards points) for direct flights on Edelweiss Air, between Vancouver & Zurich, traveling mid-June to mid-July. I would have saved a few hundred dollars per person for a layover, but we felt the added convenience was worth the cost. Glad to be done searching fares & itineraries!