Best time to book flights?

[geekman]

I need to book flights from either Cancún or Mexico City to London for Christmas 2018 and summer 2019. I’ve had a price alert set on Skyscanner for the last couple of months, and the price seems to be slightly increasing every few weeks. A friend thinks I should book them now because the further in advance you book, the cheaper they are. However, I seem to remember reading somewhere that flights are actually cheapest when booking around 3-4 months before.

What do we think? It’s a fair chunk of money so I’d like to get it right.

 

[touch]

Book it early if you know the exact dates you need to fly.
Leaving it late might mean you get it slightly cheaper, but also might mean it sells out and you have to shuffle all your plans around.

 

[VincentHanna]

I remember Martin Lewis saying 60 days before the flight tends to be the best price, but that might have been short-haul easy-jet style flights.

 

[Rotty]

there is now absolute answer as it depends on how well seats are selling

all I would add is that, in my experience, very early has almost always worked for me

 

[Rotty]

I remember Martin Lewis saying 60 days before the flight tends to be the best price, but that might have been short-haul easy-jet style flights.

I think it was but several of us are going to Portugal in about 80 days and it's currently more than double what it started at

 

[VincentHanna]

Try in 2 1/2 weeks

 

[Semple]

there is now absolute answer as it depends on how well seats are selling

all I would add is that, in my experience, very early has almost always worked for me

I'd agree with this. The cheapest times are typically when the flights are first listed, they'll sell a small handful of seats very cheaply. Then it just fluctuates depending on how popular the flight time is.

There are bargains to be had leaving it to the last minute, but this of course means you risk having to change your other plans - hotels etc.

 

[geekman]

Hmm ok, think I'll book now then rather than take the risk of it going up loads. I'm staying with my parents so I can be flexible with dates, but leaving it late is probably still too risky. Long haul flights are weird - I've paid £280 return London - NYC, but I'm struggling to find anything less than £900 return for this one. Just supply and demand I guess.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Use Hopper, an app that tells you whether the current price is good (green), average (orange) or expensive (red). So if it’s green then book now.

 

[wedrum]

there is now absolute answer as it depends on how well seats are selling

all I would add is that, in my experience, very early has almost always worked for me

Exactly this
We booked flights to Cyprus with BA in January and they have double in the last few weeks.

 

[Salsa]

Exactly this
We booked flights to Cyprus with BA in January and they have double in the last few weeks.

Given you booked during the Jan sale then it is not unexpected that flights have increased since then.

OP in my experience arly is usually best. You risk seats filling up driving ticket prices higher and flights selling out if you leave it too late in thr hope of a bargain.

Hopper is a useful way of seeing if prices are higher or lower than average but again no guarantee you get the best possible price.

I tend to set a budget and if I get flights within that im happy.

/Salsa

 

[wedrum]

i have just checked the flights again and they are now the same price as i paid.
dont know how they work it out but it seems to be all over the place with the price.

 

[Raymond Lin]

i have just checked the flights again and they are now the same price as i paid.
dont know how they work it out but it seems to be all over the place with the price.

The flights I booked for Taiwan later this year went up £40 in 4 weeks so I end up just booking it, because 2 people meaning an extra £80 increase which is not small change, I could pay for airport parking for that.

 

[wedrum]

The flights I booked for Taiwan later this year went up £40 in 4 weeks so I end up just booking it, because 2 people meaning an extra £80 increase which is not small change, I could pay for airport parking for that.

there is 8 of us on the booking, we paid £1660 they were a bit cheaper than that a few days before so i jumped in and booked them. fast forward a tad and they had doubled.

the whole thing stinks, the search and cookies must play a role on the prices as the traffic must bump them up. i was searching a few times a day before i booked hoping the price would come down but it kept going up

 

[Raymond Lin]

there is 8 of us on the booking, we paid £1660 they were a bit cheaper than that a few days before so i jumped in and booked them. fast forward a tad and they had doubled.

the whole thing stinks, the search and cookies must play a role on the prices as the traffic must bump them up. i was searching a few times a day before i booked hoping the price would come down but it kept going up

I sometimes use privacy mode in the browser to see if it makes any difference to the price.

 

[wedrum]

I sometimes use privacy mode in the browser to see if it makes any difference to the price.

did it work ?

 

[Lopéz]

Airlines employ a reasonably advanced revenue management system so it's incredibly hard to make wholesale predictions and forecasts.

 

[Raymond Lin]

did it work ?

Not when I did it, but apparently it works.

 

[Raymond Lin]

did it work ?

I just tried it again, exact same criteria. Left is Safari where cookies enabled, it even remembered my last search. Right is Chrome in Privacy Mode.

The difference is there are more search results in Chrome, and the Fastest result is cheaper, but the best and cheapest is the same.

 

[Ahleckz]

Use Google Flights/Skyscanner for the best rough prices, then use Momondo to find the absolutely cheapest - this last step is what people often don't do. I found flights for Scotland - Japan for £440 this way. Recently paid £12 for return flights to Germany as well.

Not when I did it, but apparently it works.

This isn't true, just a fallacy posted online. It's simply to do with the number of seats left.