A friend of mine wants to fly to Washington DC on 25th May. It will be Memorial day WE...
When should she buy her tickets according to the hive to get the best deal?
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Honestly, when there's a sale. There's no hard and fast rule about the best time. Dynamic pricing at its best... All subject to demand, availability of different fare buckets etc. A Google Flights alert is a good tool. That said, if she's happy with the price now, then book and don't look back.
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Generally the ticket release starts around 12-18 months dependant on the airline. We have found that early buys are good and (typically) as sales pick up prices follow.
If the route is not hugely popular or the time of year is not so then the ticket prices may drop a little.
Very dynamic and worthy of a daily check for the best price TBH.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
I think the average best price is meant to be statistically something like 62 days before.
But very route dependant
As I'm usually not very flexible on dates i usually book as early as poss just so I know I get the tickets I want
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Thank you.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
By the way, definitely check any airline websites in private browsing mode before buying...
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
There's also a website somewhere that says it tells you the optimal times to buy for any given route, I've not found it much cop though tbh
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
when you decide to go somewhere, you immediately search around for the best deal, using various web sites to do the search for you, or alternatively go to the web site direct, or call direct and book it,
this seems to be the way most people do things with various travel plans, including trains etc.
although these people I see around me everyday, also learn to function in this world at an early age, even learning how to cross the road on their own.
That’s all well and good but whilst most people shop every week and know where to buy for the best price/quality /whatever, buying plane tickets is not such a regular thing. And I am sure your missus has experienced at least once the frustration of buying something a few days before a massive sale. Bet she doesn’t anymore.
That’s what I am trying to find out for her (my friend, not your burd)
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Loads of good advice at money saving expert.com.... as usual.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I've not tried it yet but I keep seeing the hopper app being advertised.
https://www.hopper.com
Why in private browsing?Originally Posted by seikopath
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If you've searched before, the site knows and often increases the price (cookies). I've just booked flights to Porto, forgot until seeing this thread. Thankfully the price was the same in private mode - although they've gone up 15% (only £11.50) since I looked last week
Eg if you keep checking the same fares on the same computer the prices can go up . But if you use another computer you'll see the fares quoted at the original price. I've seen this myself on klm.com for example. Something to do with cookies. Private browsing, no cookies. Or something.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Never buy your tickets AFTER the flight, or DURING the flight. It's best to buy them BEFORE the flight.
Watchdog did a piece on this a few months back. They had some of their investigators look up flights over a period of a few weeks, some clearing cookies etc after initially getting prices and others not - their conclusion was that it made no difference what-so-ever. Prices went up and down however that was due to route, availability and so on, not because of previous browsing history.
I did hear something similar in the media, perhaps in radio 4, where the airlines all denied such a practice. But I agree to disagree, because i know what I've seen. Two different machines showing two different prices on the same site at the same time for the same flights, the only variable being one with a browsing history, and one without.I've even booked the cheaper flight while the more expensive is shown on the other machine. I tend to book my flights several months in advance, in periods that you would expect prices to stay fairly flat.
Last edited by seikopath; 10th November 2017 at 05:33.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
The Avianca UK site and the Avianca Colombia site often simultaneously have completely different prices for the same flights, and even show differing availability of the various tiers of ticket. The local one is usually cheapest.
Finding the best flights and routes/ prices is a personal quest of MrsO and she is rather good at it .
A lot of the time it is Atlantic crossing for us and we have flown to the US via Barcelona a couple of times - alters the UK departure tax .
For general bargains we get alerts from
https://www.jacksflightclub.co.uk/
My worst journey she booked for me - some crazy cheap fare was -
PLS - MIA - Düsseldorf ( 8 hr layover) - Stanstead - hire a car and drive to East Midlands Airport.
Last edited by MarkO; 10th November 2017 at 17:46.
Same in India
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Can’t you get price alerts from somewhere?
Skyscanner?
Some great tips and links. Everything has been passed down, thank you all.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I used to operate a large travel website.
Prices are dynamic. Earlier is generally better as prices increase as capacity increases.
However, under filled aircraft will have bargain prices.
Sine airlines are more clever. BA are more likely to offer an amazing hotel deal than drop the prices to much to mask the discount.
Nobody that I've heard of tracks users and increases their fair.
Where are they flying from? The UK?
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UK or France, UK slightly more convenient
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Are you talking about the airlines themselves or just third parties' websites?
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
You mean prices increase as capacity decreases, right?
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I was recently booking flights to a Pacific Island via Santiago. Initially I thought that a stop-off in Chile would be a nice idea so I looked at prices for the return flight to Santiago and the return flight from Santiago to the island. Then I compared this with the price of booking a connecting return flight from Bogota to the island via Santiago on exactly the same route and with the same airline. The connecting flight was a third of the price, much less than either of the legs in the initial search.
A dark art, flight pricing.
I booked flights to India with the fare being pretty much the same as the previous year when I went. Then curiosity got the better of me and I rechecked fares a few weeks after booking and they were £150 cheaper! Emirates decided to have a sale (mid July) so I will keep this in mind next time.
My Mrs always uses Skyscanner.
Just booked a couple of economy return flights to Fla on Virgin for £793.
Cheers,
Neil.
Skyscanner for a decade now. Ever reliable.
In June I flew to New York and back via Norwegian. Fantastically affordable (but New York accommodation certainly wasn't!).
A person I met who worked for an airline said that he has no idea how they make money given how low their ticket prices are.
There is pretty good availability for reward flights with BA to/from Washington around those dates.
The "cost" with BA in terms of points looks to be between 13,000 and 20,000 Avios points, but that's one-way only. The taxes (assuming flying economy) then come to GBP 244.10.
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