Buying Air Tix
 

Hi Everyone,

I'm planning to fly next month on the 7th (feb 7th) and need to purchase my flight. I've been putting it off because I had move some stuff around on my work calendar and waiting for people to get back to me, and with the holidays, people in and out of the office, it's taken longer to do get my schedules in order. Now I have all the green lights to go.

I checked airfares earlier in the week and it was about $50 cheaper. Today is Friday so obviously it's more expensive. Should I just go ahead and pull the trigger anyways? Or should I wait until Monday to buy? Or is that cutting it too close to the date of departure?

Need advice from all you experienced frequent flyers!

Thanks!

PS Will be flying with AA because I have some vouchers I would like to use up!

Honestly, no one can answer your question with any accuracy. It is impossible to tell you if airfares to any given location will go up or down and if the do change when those changes will go into effect or how long they will last. If we were able to do that we could make a fortune.

The only real advice one can give you is to be an "informed shopper". you do that be monitoring the fares to your intended destination and when you see what looks like a good fare that you can live with you should book the flight as there's NEVER any guarantee the fare you see today will be available tomorrow. Sometimes the fare you see now disappears within hours.

Hint - monitor fares and sign up for "airfare sale alerts" on travel sites like Kayak, Orbitz, etc and your airline(s) of choice's website.

As a practical matter, discount ticket come with conditions, and some must be bought more than 30 days before the flight, some fewer days before the flight, and if they are not bought, they disappear and the only thing left is a more expensive ticket.

Pricing is currently not predictable, but when it was more stable, it seemed that prices went down a bit starting 60 days before the flight, but then went up starting 30 days before the flight. Strangely, they would never give you a break two days before the flight, even if they had many unsold seats.

Friday obviously cheaper? News to me....

If you are planning to use vouchers as part of your ticket, and fly in 3 weeks, I think you should get in touch with AA and see if there are any restrictions about using said vouchers. They have more info than we do, or should.