I probably know the answer already, but wanted to vent my frustration online: For over two monthsI have been tracking a Delta multi-city flight: Jacksonville-Atlanta-Brussels on 6/18/2011 and the return flight London-Gatwick-Atlanta-Jacksonville on June 23, 2011...prime time. We're talking four tickets here. The first fare posted on the Delta web site was $1,260 = $5,040, now it's up to $1,310 = $5,240...up $200.

I've bought similar tickets 9-10 months prior to departure dates, and they NEVER went down in price. That's what is nagging at me.

It's like playing the stock market with these airline fares. Do I hold pat and continue to watch for a while longer or pull the trigger at $ 1.310 per ticket?

Are you tracking the fare on Delta or another website?

I'm tracking the air fare on Delta and Kayak.

I'd wait until next Jan or Feb. Unlikely the fare will go significantly higher than what you see now, with good chance they'll be lower. And why give DL so much money so early?

I agree - it would seem way too early to be booking. fare sales for Spring/Summer travel often are announced in Dec/Jan/Feb. Maybe a bit earlier.

The "sales" that airline "announced" are seldom that great. And most of the time, cheap fares just pop up with no fanfare. Just check the fares regularly starting in the winter.

Thank you to everyone for their comments. In reality, this is going to be an emotional purchase. My husband and I are already booked with FF miles for this trip (in-and-out of JFK).

The four tickets I'm referring to are for my son and his family. I'm like a mother hen - I need a comfort level that they are booked on these flights.

I know, I know...patience is a virtue.

Normally, I would suggest waiting until nearer the departure date, but you have two complicaations that may argue for buying now.

First, you apparently all want to fly on the same plane. You already have two tickets, so you need four more. The longer you wait, the more tickets will be sold to other people, and when you try to buy, you may find that they don't have four seats left, especially in the same fare bucket, and four seats together.

Second, many people don't realize it, but there are possibly a dozen types of tickets sold in tourist class, all with varying conditions that affect the price. Never ask another person sitting by you what they paid for their ticket, because they probably paid more or less than you, and that breeds ill feelings. Often, when airlines advertise a sale, or a low fare, that applies only to a very few tickets in a specified fare bucket, so they might not have four tickets at that great price, even if you are lucky enough to be first in line. I think this scheme makes it harder to shop for a good price when you are getting multiple tickets. Once I bought two tickets, one for me and one for my wife. They were, unknown to me, from different fare buckets, and one earned miles while the other didn't. They gave the miles to my wife, and none to me. It took about four months of insistent whining before they realized I wasn't going to go away and gave me the miles to which I wasn't entitled; I'm thankful someone there was willing to override the system to help me.

So because it is important to you to have tickets on the same flight, and seats together, I assume. And because you are not as likely to get a great price for four tickets, I suggest you consider buying now. But I would call the airline first and see if they can make you a deal; a web site won't but a human might.

clevelandbrown, You took the time to really read my post, and I am grateful.

We live in Connecticut, so my husband and I are flying in-and-out of New York/JFK on Delta FF miles...done.

Our son, DIL, and our two young GSs are the group of four flying out of Jacksonville. It does worry me that because this isn't a simple round-trip, and it involves multi cities, the fare simply won't go down because it is a "custom" flight. I am paying for these four tickets from JAX.

I'm real busy now, we are snowbirds and are on the road at the end of October heading to our FL house. That's an issue. I cannot monitor the flights multiple times daily. My DIL is also helping me by monitoring the flights on her end. Come December, we fly back to CT from FL -- busy, busy and lots of distractions. This stuff really impacts how much time you can spend on tracking air fare.

I keep asking myself: Is it really worth waiting for the air fare to (MAYBE) go down, or is peace of mind more important? I know it's a lot of money, and we're not wealthy people, but there are other parts of the trip I can save on.

Yes, you are absolutely right: I want the four seats on each leg of the trip to be together.

I will call Delta Airlines tomorrow. Perhaps they will have something to offer.

It's not really a custom flight, it's a simple open jaw ticket which doesn't really mean much when it comes to price unless there is a sale in or out of one of the cities. Open jaw tickets are usually half the fare price of a r/t trip to each city added together. Brussels is usually one of the cheaper cities for Delta flights, but your JAX gateway may be affecting the prices.

Are your dates accurate? That's only a 5 day trip.

I know it's an open jaw ticket...that was a poor choice of a word.

The return date: that was a good catch. The return date should be June 30, 2011. Good point about the JAX gateway.

clevelandbrown, It's done...called Delta Airlines today and got tickets for $1,189.00 (w/o tax). I'm satisfied.

Thank you for the recommendation to call a human being.