Jim143

I am planning a trip to France in July and am wondering if I should purchase tickets now or wait for a lower price. Should I expect prices to drop much lower if I wait? There is quite a bit of variation in the duration of connections and my fear is that for the sake of minimal decreases in fares I may miss out on the shorter duration connections. That could mean 10 or more extra travel hours. Air Canada is probably my only choice.

29FEB

What works for me is setting up a Kayak price alert about 6 months out.
My goal is to purchase before the 3 month mark, so that gives me three months to monitor.

Kayak checks a number of travel sites - my latest cheap tickets were courtesy of MakeMyTrip,
an Indian site. Good luck to you!

Jim143

thankyou 29feb. I'll try it

eliztravels2

There is no way to know for sure when it is the best time to buy. However, I've read that 4-5 months lead time for an international flight is likely optimum and this has proven true for me. I use www.matrix.itasoftware.com where you can easily monitor prices for most airlines for a range of travel dates and trip durations. Once you have seen something you like you need to go to the airline's site to purchase, which is what most people here would recommend anyway. Once you have your tickets, forget about what you paid and put your energy into other aspects of planning and enjoy the anticipation.

Jim143

I was unaware of that website. It looks like it can be useful in my search. thankyou.