Conde Nast on when to buy air tickets

Everyone has a magic number of when to buy ticket. Which is great until it is published and then the airline computers change to another date. Remember the old poster here who used to push the 60 day mark because he had inside information?

Ahhhh. Who could forget that guy?

How can there be "one number or one date" when the computer systems are constantly crunching the data and there are an almost infinite number of combinations of fares based on many variables that purchasers don't even know about? To say that one should buy "x" days in advance in some definitive way really dumbs down the complexity of yield management, and there's no evidence that it works. These tips are for the sole purpose of making frustrated purchasers feel better or to feel like they can exercise some control over the matter...it's like trying to vie against high-speed trading when the computer has way more info ahead of time at its disposal. Not sure alerts work either since the price is often gone, gone, gone by the time one actually acts on the alert.

Last September I purchased for $450 round trip to Mardrid in March. Never saw anything even close to that again.

Late Feb I purchased a round trip to London with the outbound in Virgin Premium Economy and the return on Delta coach for $819 in October. Delta's now advertising that route on sale for the same period at $1,299 and it's all coach!

These articles are useless. I am more on the Clark Howard model. See a sale, buy a ticket and then plan around it!

Carol is exactly correct. There is no crystal ball or magic algorithm. You simply check fares frequently so that you KNOW a sale when you see it. That's when you buy it.

I've got a group traveling in June of 20+ people. Tried to book through Delta Group Travel who quoted me the standard $1200 airfare. Then Delta's website had a published fare sale of only $750. Group Travel said they would not give me that fare. So I logged in and bought 21 tickets at that sale fare of $750....saving me over $9000

Traveling in December to Paris and just snagged a $415 roundtrip deal for our family. A few hours later the tickets were again at the $1200 range. You've just got to keep your eyes peeled and buy it when you see it. There is not other way (other than the full fare).

I agree it is useless. What is interesting to me is that every time an article like this appears, or a self-proclaimed expert (like He Who Shall Not Be Named) promotes a specific "sweet spot" for prices, it is a different time frame. A previous article I found said 6 months out for international flights and produced graphs tracking prices to prove it. Now this one says 99 days ( 3 months out). I go with the "buy when it feels right" except for the time when I followed the "sweet spot"advice and paid $1000 more than I would have if I bought them at my usual time.