How far in advance to purchase air fare
 

We will be traveling in late August from LAX to Singapore, then overland to Melacca, KL and Penang. Leaving from Penang back LAX. (I know we have to go thru KL or Singapore).

How early should we book are airfare to go in and out of LAX? Price more of an issue than exact dates. And suggestions for where to find the best airfares are MOST appreciated. Are there consolidators we should consider?

our summer usually has the highest rates to asia...

i would book now or shortly....

take a look at malaysia air and cathy pacific...cathy just reintroduced the all asia fare which might work for you...

thai air direct from LA might also work for you

We recently bought our trickets - SFO to SIN in June. I had been monitoring airfares since about September and the lowest I had seen were right around $1000. Fares have risen a couple hundred to around $1250. We didn't know what they were going to do, but we know summer is popular, so we bought our tickets rather than waiting and risking higher fares. Our dates were flexible too - we are flying out on a Wednesday and home on a Friday.

Typically airfare sales start up 3 to 4 months before the flight date. But the kicker these days is the price of gasoline. If it goes way up, it could offset any sale prices and you might be better of buying now. But if prices stablize or drop some, then airfares could be better when the sales hit. Roll the dice.

Go on Kayak.com & plug in your destination cities & let their search engine search every airline & discounter (not consolidator)... be sure to check if you want a NONSTOP (which is different than direct) or ONE STOP.

Oil is going nowhere but up, so IMO sooner rather than later.

We bought LAX-BKK-LAX in August. The travel agent made mistakes, refunded & we bought through a consolidator recommended to us by Thai Air. They are called Star Tours on Hollywood Blvd., in Thai town in Hollywood. Open Saturdays too. The gals are all Thai & their English can be very difficult to understand... but after you check rates on Kayak, I would call them ask for "Tina" her English is passable... or "Tony" the manager... then see what quote they give you. They accept credit cards, but I would KNOW the flights you want (and the class) before you call them.

If they don't have great rates for Malaysia Air, then call Malaysia Air & ask them to recommend a consolidator.

Star Tours is on Thai Air's US website.

Once you purchase, recheck your flights a few months in advance, as we found one of our connecting flights was rescheduled so we could not catch our connection, so we had to change everything... this is no unusual with many domestic Asian carriers.