Air ticket pricing questions

I want to ask our LL group how they decide when to purchase air tickets. I have heard various reports that prices sometimes change for a bit mid-week. I have also heard about late in the night price drops. Any comments? I need one more ticket to Costa Rica (the other is a ff ticket) and I go back and forth when to buy. At this point, the price came down $40. and there are still a lot of seats available. I do know that USAir will give you a credit if the price comes down and you call (however, this has become a major ordeal....I just had the "fun" dealing with the airlines about this a month ago for another trip.) Does anyone know if most of the airlines offer you this credit if the fare drops after you purchase the ticket? Thanks for any insight.

Delta offers e-credits from the website (or at the ticket offices--which are limited these days!)
I'm sorry I can't tell you about others.

Hello,

In my experience, most airlines won't offer any credit if the price drops -- so USAir is unusually generous. However, many of them will match prices on the Internet, though proving that the price is for the same class of ticket on the same dates etc is such a pain it's not really worth if for the small amounts involved.

It's hard to predict when the best time to buy a ticket is. I just bought a ticket to SA which cost 200 more than it would have done if I bought it in January (it's been a long time since I had to buy a ticket as I've been using FF miles recently). I kept watching the fares to see if they would drop but they didn't, and with less than a month to go before I leave I decided to buy as the seats were filling up. Oh well, lesson learned for next time!

In general, fares are less expensive on weekdays (MTWTh). New fares tend to be released around midnight in the airline's home time zone, whatever that may be.

Sidestep.com is great for finding low fares as it checks most of the budget airline sites as well as the main airline sites and sites like Orbitz and Travelocity (though it's not great for Air Botswana).

Cheers,
Julian

Julian: Thank you so much for the pricing info. We are 7 months from the CR trip so I have time however, the price is just OK now. I would hope it would go lower. Thanks for telling me to check weekdays. Do you believe the price went up $1.00 from Friday to today! I did check seats and the plane is about 15% full. I typically use the airlines web site when pricing. Right now we are holding one Frequent Flier ticket so need to stay with the airline. I'll keep watching and maybe so doing some statistical surveys of the fares!

Hi Bonnie,

I looked at my previous post and I think I may have been a bit unclear...flights that leave on weekdays are cheaper, but the prices for the same flight aren't necessarily cheaper if you check on a weekday.

Checking after midnight is helpful because if there is a sale there are usually a limited number of seats at that price, and they go fast.

If you want to monitor availability, you may want to subscribe to http://www.expertflyer.com which enables you to see the same information that a travel agent sees when checking availability. if you're looking for a seat in a specific class you can check availability on all the flights leaving on a particular date for that class (very helpful when searching for award tickets, though not all airlines have this feature). You can save your queries and run them again if you want to check back every now and again.

ExpertFlyer also has a function for searching for the 'average' ticket price for a particular route so you can see how the fares you are seeing compare to that price (though these should be taken with a grain of salt) and real-time seat maps.

Cheers,
Julian

Bonnie--nearly all major US carriers refund the difference (when a fare decreases) as an ecredit toward another purchase.
I have found reversing codeshare airlines can be helpful, too:
example: Air France has flight #00 CDG to CVG priced $1080 on their site,
Delta has same flight for $1000 from their site listed as their codeshare # 00 on AF equipment.
It also reverses sometimes and Delta may offer Delta equip, flight 1 hr later, for $200 more or $200 less. I have also seen one carrier offer lots cheaper for same route from other competitor's hub city, just to grab some of the business (usually with stop in THEIR hub, tho). It gets so complicated.

Hi...

Purchasing air tickets has become the most difficult part of planning a trip. I have been traveling for business and pleasure for over 25 years, and I have yet to figure out the best secret for securing the lowest rates. I do know that airfares vary from day to day (for no apparent reason), but usually the rates come up on the computers cheaper when you view the sites mid-week. Also, flying on Saturdays is usually cheaper as are Tues/Wed/Thurs. I suggest that you check out as many of the websites for airfares as the rates vary between each one (again, no logical reason for this!)



Important note for using frequent flier miles -most airlines open up the seats 300 to360 days before travel... so when booking you need to take into account the day you are returning, then book your ticketbased onyour return date, not departure date. In the last three years I have used over 750K in miles for free tickets for myself, family and friends and have found out that unless you want to use them in the non-restricted catagory, you need to really book way in advance. Otherwise you will get the "capacity controlled" speech when you find out no seats are available.



Good luck...

Cathy

wow, Cathy--you are so right--about FF miles return dates, etc. AND--no one has the secret to decoding the best fares/booking, etc. It's the search!! and search and search and...
The anit-hub competition is one the most interesting--example: Delta wants to grab biz from US Air, so they run a great special out of Arizona (via ATL or CVG) for a common destination that might be much more expensive if it originated in either of D's hubs. US Air might do the same on a certain United route via Chicago. It's a wonder anyone can figure it out. If we didn't have travel search engines...? But, keep in mind, most are partially owned/funded by specific airlines, so there's a prejudice built in.
Keep working on the air deal so you can get the most out of LL.

Hi Cathy: Thanks for your post. We have only enough points for restricted travel so yes, I am the one watching 360 days in advance for tickets! That is why our one ticket to Costa Rica is with FF miles. I am now having fun watching the paying ticket go up and down! For example, in one day the price went down about $60 dollars then up about $20. Its crazy. I really was hoping there would be an airline guru on the community boards that would know all! I guess I will do what I seem to always do and that is buy the ticket now and then request a ticket if the price goes down. Thank you everyone for your posts.

I haven't discovered that magic secret to getting the best airfare, but the one thing I read, which I've found to be true, is that many of the airlines open up new seating availability and new fares at midnight. So I generally track prices for awhile before I fly and will try and check immediately after midnight if I'm awake.