When to book a flight - Is 4 Months too early?
 

Planning a trip to California with my sister. Looking at flights from NYC to San Francisco and returning to NYC from San Diego. It seems that fares have been going up and I wanted to to book now (found decent flight times) and my sister wants to wait. She thinks it's too soon. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Sorry meant to add we are planning on July 1 thru July 11.

I booked flights to and from San Diego from Washington, DC...WEEKS ago...do it NOW IMO

I suspect there will be few, if any, sales...although booking early is no guarantee of the lowest price I still wouldn't wait.

I hope it won't offend anyone reading this if I ask just why your sister thinks it is "too soon."

Too soon - why is important. If she thinks there is any chance dates or trip will change, then it is too soon.

I usually ask myself a couple of questions. Does the current fare look reasonable to me based on what I have researched? Which will make me angrier - if I book now and fare goes down; or - if I don't book now and fare goes up.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. Unfortnately, my sister can't make a decision quickly. She thinks something may come up and we may have to cancel and doesn't want to lose the money for the tickets. There is nothing that we know about that would make us change our plans. I've already seen the fares go up since I started researching and will use your responses to help my case.

Thanks again.

Check if you can get Southwest - you can cancel without penalty, or change to lower price if it goes down, keeping the difference for a year to use on another trip.

It is a crap shoot. (Have you ever googled"If airlines sold paint") I watched for months for an airfare drop so I could attend a wedding in San Antonio. I had almost given up but it went down one day, I booked it, it was back up later in the day.

You are flying out on a Thursday, so that should help your fare, but that is a holiday week so who knows. You might get a better fare if you fly back on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Late Friday night/early Sat. morning is often a good time to look for fare drops. Seems the airlines mess with fares then. I just checked a flight to Denver though and it is up from earlier today.

It's easy to do a quick check on www.kayak.com. They also have a calendar that shows fares that people have found for the route in that last 48 hours.

Good luck. I hate booking airfares.

It's not a science, that's for sure.

I'm sort of like your sister as well. I always think that when we book (to get the lowest fares, we always get the non-refundable ones), something will come up and we'll have to scrap the trip and pay the penalty if we have to change the fly dates.

But I just bite the bullet and book as soon as I think it's a decent deal. There are some websites out there that supposedly can predict future fares, but I don't put much stock in them.

I don't think 4 months out is too early. Is your sister helping you check fares? If it's up to you to find a good airfare, then follow your instinct.

As far as I'm concerned, when I'm booking airfare etc, that's the "something" that has come up. It trumps all else.