Expert Tips for Snagging the Cheapest Airfare

by Ed Perkins / Smarter Travel

Lots of ink and pixels have been devoted to the quest for an answer to the question, “When is the best time to buy airline tickets?” My pat answer has always been, “When they’re on sale,” but colleague George Hobica of SmarterTravel’s sister site Airfarewatchdog says—and I agree—that you can’t predict the next sale. Nevertheless, folks keep trying. The latest data from a new report byCheapAir.com might provide some answers to this often-debated conundrum.

 

When to Buy Domestic

The information from online travel agency CheapAir.com focuses on how far in advance the optimum time to buy might be. The data are based on CheapAir’s extensive mining of their own purchase records.

CheapAir found, on historical average, that the ideal time to purchase a domestic ticket is 79 days, or seven weeks, in advance of departure (when the average fare for the sample was about $400). The earliest data were for seven months in advance, where the average fare was $475. The fare decreased slowly and steadily until the 49-day point; after that, it increased slowly until 11 days in advance, when it spiked to more than $600 on the day before the flight.

 

What About International?

For international tickets, the “sweet spot” was a little more in advance: 81 days, with good deals available generally 11 to 12 weeks in advance.

CheapAir’s findings generally track with others: The Economist reported the “eight-week rule” and Airlines Reporting Corp. reported six weeks as the optimum.

The report also notes that you find lots of deviations from this average. CheapAir found some routes where the best time to buy was when the flight first opened (331 days in advance) and others when the cheapest tickets were last-minute. And, of course, you’re better off buying earlier for travel around major holidays.

Track Your Flight for Fare Drops

Beyond trying to pick the best periods to buy, you have the option of tracking fares with the possibility of getting a refund if a fare drops after you buy.

CheapAir has what appears to be one of the best such programs: “Price Drop Payback” promises that if you buy a ticket through CheapAir and the fare subsequently goes down, the agency will issue a credit in the amount of the difference, up to a maximum of $100. The deal applies only to online purchases of nonrefundable economy-class tickets and only to fare drops posted on CheapAir for the exact same itinerary.

Other big OTAs provide somewhat similar programs. Orbitz offers a credit up to 110 percent of the difference, but only if someone else actually books the identical itinerary on Orbitz. Expedia offers a guarantee, but only for price drops that occur within 24 hours of purchase.

 

Sign Up for Fare Alerts

Another approach is to request an alert whenever a fare drops on some route you want to fly. Here, you have lots of options: Most big OTAs offer such a service, as do some airlines and some independent third-party travel-information sites. Most third-party agencies do not include Allegiant and Southwest, two lines that block “screen scraping” by external agencies, but George Hobica’s human-powered Airfarewatchdog.com does cover these lines.

Just enter one or more routes and your email address, and the source will notify you of a fare drop. These days, some also provide smartphone and iPad apps.

Different Approaches

The report’s data dispute the urban legend about buying tickets on Tuesday and Wednesday: CheapAir found little day-to-day difference.

And two online outfits—Bing Travel and most recently Kayak—boast a still different approach: “buy or wait a week” airfare predictors on their search engines. I’m currently testing them and will report results soon.

Stay Current

All in all, you won’t find a single magic-bullet answer to the when-to-buy question. Instead, your best protection is to avail yourself of a number of different approaches and keep on top of the airfare marketplace.

Ed Perkins on Travel is copyright (c) 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.