Best Time to buy tickets
 

Greetings all,


Im saving up for my March trip to OZ. Can anyone tell me when fares typically go on sale for that time of year?

Departing from where?

Typically most websites/travel agents sell tickets 6 months & more in advance. 9 months in advance may be pushing it but you could try for a good apex deal now. We always buy our Dec trip tickets to Asia in April/May and manage to save a few hundred bucks, in most cases. Fuel price increases are forever adding to airline prices.

Just to update you, doggie, Thai have increased the price of Syd/BKK/Syd for DEC 2005 from $1119 to $1624. We bought our tickets in April and now in June prices are $400+ more per ticket. Looks like the earlier the better!

THanx Lyndie for your input. Im surrently saving my money now so AS SOON as tickets go on sale I'm buying. Im hoping that will happen in August.

Dog,

I get asked this question all the time -unfortunately, without a crystal ball, there's no good answer! Who knows what the airlines have up their sleeves? It's all based on some marketing wizard and availability!

The seats sell out for a particular period in time, the price goes up. It's as simple as that. Why should they put it on sale if they can sell it for full price?

My advice is, if you have specific dates in mind, then book it as soon as you can, especially if you have no flexibility and are locked into those dates. Also keep in mind, there are quite a number of specials going on with various cutesy names supplied by the aforementioned marketing people. :)

There's a basic package (running for at least 6 years, under different names each year) that starts at $1399 for your international air + 4 nights hotel accommodation in 3 cities (basic rate goes up depending on which cities you choose and what hotel class); ah, but there's a way we agents can get creative with that as well! :)

You can always go to www.australia.com and click on "Planning your Trip, and then, "find a travel agent" in your area and they'll find the best package for you.

Hope this is helpful!

Melodie
Certified Aussie Specialist

We booked our November Oz flights (LAX-SYD and MEL-LAX) in about April at $1400 pp because we had specific dates we needed to travel. Recently the price for the trip dropped about $200 pp. Qantas doesn't let you cancel and rebook for a lower fare unfortunately so we just have to live with it.