I am planning a family trip (husband, two adult daughters and their boyfriends) to Maui in mid August. We will be flying from Oakland, CA and Burbank CA to Maui. I prefer Aloha Airlines, nonstop. Currently the best price is $599 pp from Burbank and $667 pp from Oakland, nonstop. My dilemma is, buy now or wait and hope they become more reasonable? I know this is peak family travel time so I'm nervous to wait too long, but don't want to jump in too early and pay way to much! Your thoughts, please...

You have asked the classic unanswerable question! Wouldn't it be great if somone could figure out the answer? If you are absolutely locked into specific dates, you should probably book early to guarantee seats. If you do, the price will almost certainly go down before you travel. Murphy's law in action.

I booked a December trip in August because I was afraid I would not get seats if I waited only to find seats still available in October for $125 per person less.

FWIW, in my experience sale prices start popping up about 2-3 months in advance. I started seeing sales for December travel to Hawaii in late September. The closer it got to December, the LOWER the prices got. I don't know if the same is true of summer travel (I always thought winter was peak season for Hawaii, but it does seem like lots of people go there in the summer).

I bought my ticket for Maui (we will be there next week) in mid-December or approximately one month before our departure. We areleaving from ATL and the total cost, direct from Continental w/tax was under $600. I checked today to see what the price was, just for the heck of it and the same ticket on the same flight is now over $1000.

There's no good answer to your question. It's pretty much a coin toss, but I think travel agents sometimes have a better feel for when ticket prices might be going down/up.

If you know who Clark Howard is (www.clarkhoward.com)and get his syndicated radio show where ever you are, he gives great travel tips and advice on his show on Fridays. You can even call in and ask him questions. I once got tickets from ATL to Albequerque (sp?), RT for $67 (including tax, and that's not a typo) because of a tip he gave on his program (he used to give daily travel tips). Another time he gave a tip on flights to Paris for $199 RT, including tax and my entire family went for under $1000 (four of us). He's worth a listen if you get him in your city.

Good luck.

DD

Why do you keep asking thes same qusetion over and over?

Sorry for the repetition. Something must be going on with my server (at work). I posted the first time yesterday and it never came through. Then I tried twice today and all three came up w/in a few minutes! Dates are firm. It's my daughter's only week off between summer associate job w/ lawfirm and the beginning of fall semester.