I know that none of us have a crystal ball, but I'm wondering if someone who watches flights between the US and Asia more closely than I do can weigh in on a "when to buy" question.

I'm looking to buy tickets for two people between Las Vegas and Seoul for a ~2.5 week trip in May 2025. We'll be traveling economy and we don't want flights with more than 1 layover. I've looked into all sorts of options, including buying a RT ticket to Korea out of a west coast city, but it looks like the best options are RT LAS-ICN tickets on WestJet with layovers in Calgary. (I don't want to do anything too funky with the flight itinerary to get the absolute lowest price; I'm looking for a good balance between convenience and price.)

The dates that work best for us are 5/9-5/24, and 2 RT tickets are coming up at US $2777 ($1389 each). That's an eyewatering sum, but as I've checked prices here and there over the past few months, I haven't seem them much lower.

Does anyone have thoughts on whether or not prices are likely to drop, or should I just bite the bullet and buy now?

Ok here is my advice yet it applies to Europe not Asia.

I've been looking at airfare EWR to FRA for May. It had always been reasonable at non stop. My jaw dropped when it was coming up $1900 r/t for 1 economy ticket. For June it was over 2k for the same as my dates are open as I am visiting a friend. If for a higher class I could understand but not just economy which includes 1 piece of checked luggage.

A few weeks ago, it dropped to a little over $1100 so I bought it. It immediately jumped back to $1900 the next day. I happened to look this morning and its now $17 cheaper than what I paid.

So my advice is to keep checking as I start looking out 6 months but normally buy 5-4 months out. It is a guessing game and only you know what you can live with.

With more than 40 years of international travel under my belt I have basically the same advice as sassy27 says: monitor airfares for your intended time frame and destination, sign up for airfare alerts with your preferred airline(s) and websites like kayak. When you see a fare you can live with book your flight. No one has a crystal ball and no one can predict when or if airfares will go up or down.

"No one has a crystal ball and no one can predict when or if airfares will go up or down." . . . even the airlines can't predict when their fares will go up or down. The algorithms used are smarter than anyone.

As mentioned -- set alerts and hopefully you'll get a good fare. But just in general, Transpacific and Transatlantic seem a lot higher than last year - at least any I've been checking the last couple of months. $1400 actually doesn't seem that far out of line compared to some I've seen lately. Have you checked out of Vancouver and Seattle??

Here are some fare searches at GF.

Use the date grid to find nearby dates.
The price grid might help to find 15-day trips on adjacent dates.
You can can get notifications.

The first search is what you wanted.
The second query is for other cities, and you might want to change that to be nonstop only because you would also need tix between them and LAS. You could also edit it to create another find fares between LAS and those other US and CA airports

Be sure to use the Date Grid for alternate dates. In particular, your return on the 24th is on a Saturday. People fly to LAS on Fridays and Satrdays, so you might find a lower fare for a return Sunday the 25th.

The searches are for economy but I would at least check for premium economy because you never know.

roundtrip
Las Vegas to Seoul | Google Flights
Las Vegas and 6 more to Seoul | Google Flights

one-way
Las Vegas and 6 more to Seoul | Google Flights
Seoul to Las Vegas and 6 more | Google Flights

I do not know much about flights to Asia from Las Vegas but generally it seems that the least expensive fares tend to be out of LAX with places like SFO and YVR sometimes getting decent prices. Weekend fares also do seem to be more expensive. May is shoulder season and I suspect best fares are going to be in the low 1000's. Like everyone else I monitor airfares and put on a price alert about 6 months out. I would be looking at buying in the January-February time period. You can't look to get the lowest price but one that is reasonable to you. I often fly United to Asia and buy when I see a decent fare as I can always cancel and rebook if I see a significantly cheaper fare. I do not think an airfare from Las Vegas to Korea at $1300 to be an eye watering airfare, especially if you only want one stop and reasonable timing.