Saw this article in the WP today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/google-flights-cheap-europe-holidays/ I wouldn't expect the daycount to be exact, but it does give an idea of when to look. YMMV
Aim to get way ahead of your European travel plans. Prices are lowest between 50 and 179 days before takeoff. The best of those deals tend to pop up 129 days out.
I was starting to feel like I needed to get on the ball booking my ticket for the spring, but at 258 days out, apparently not. Phew!
Thanks John, good to know.
Not sure that I get the best price because I haven't been that scientific (but good to know), my luck has been when watching the prices that I jump about 90 days out and I think it has worked out pretty well for me. Two months ago the flight I am taking in November were several hundred more than when I bought them about a week ago. (shortly after returning from the previous trip to Europe .... never too soon)
I don't think this is valuable information.
Large airport pricing behaves entirely differently from medium-sized airports so an aggregation of the 2 confuses and distorts.
I buy and follow pricing after buying and there's no sweet spot X number of days out. Also is the Google information apples to apples, finding a low price via Casablanca and with an 8 hour connection 2 months before departure is not helpful.
James' experience this year is not very telling because there was a spike in pricing earlier this year and prices have fallen universally.
As a real world example, for a 2020 trip where I bought tickets for a child's Europe tour, the same tickets that were $700 8 months out were $1550 2 months out when the travel agent booked them for the tour. Maybe an extreme example, but a real one, and one typical of a medium-sized airport market according to my research and memory. I have many examples of purchases in my brain and never has there been a best price at 129 days, it's always been earlier than that.
For a medium sized airport, an average situation is this for peak/shoulder season travel:
11 months out prices start out high
10-6 months out the prices are usually the lowest they will be, on a moving average.
4-6 months out prices start to rise until departure day
There will be intermittent fare sales, some advertised and some not, and they can occur early or late, but late fare sales just don't seem to happen to Europe, at least not from my market.
