Do airline prices change through out year?

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Sometimes I think we start looking for airline tickets too far out, but that is our style. We are looking for March travel, and the ticket prices are just too high.

All searches are from MSP (Minneapolis) and for March Sat-Sat travel.
We had planned on going to MIA, tickets are $500.
Checked Myrtle Beach, nearly $400.
Found Orlando at about $300, but we have to fly from MSP to Denver then to Orlando. Otherwise, the price is in the mid $350 area.

So, if we check for prices in September or November for the March flight, will prices have changed or are the prices just doing their normal price fluctuation over the Wed vs. Saturday time. Is there a better time to buy airline tickets?

[Sthack Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sthack]

Airfare Alert Sites

Sign up with an Airfare Alert site like Yapta. Yapta: Track flight prices and check for airline refunds

There are other sites like this but this is the one that I'm signed with.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Yes, prices do fluctuate up and down due to various factors like price of fuel, etc. Some airlines will give you a credit for the difference if the fare drops after you purchase your tickets. Southwest and Alaska do this. I wouldn't purchase tickets more than a couple months in advance. The airlines are going to price their tickets higher for flights several months out to protect themselves from unknown events.

I agree with the previous poster on signing up for alerts. I belong to several different ones. Usually the fares are not viable for us because they often are for flights at inconvenient times but not always.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Sometimes I think we start looking for airline tickets too far out, but that is our style. We are looking for March travel, and the ticket prices are just too high.

All searches are from MSP (Minneapolis) and for March Sat-Sat travel.
We had planned on going to MIA, tickets are $500.
Checked Myrtle Beach, nearly $400.
Found Orlando at about $300, but we have to fly from MSP to Denver then to Orlando. Otherwise, the price is in the mid $350 area.

So, if we check for prices in September or November for the March flight, will prices have changed or are the prices just doing their normal price fluctuation over the Wed vs. Saturday time. Is there a better time to buy airline tickets?

If you have the type of flexibility regarding the particular it will behoove you to check around. When I was buying tickets a couple of months ago for travel to Florida. I found that the cheapest airports to fly into were Tampa and Fort Myers. Prices everywhere I checked (Miami, Sarasota, Orlando, Jacksonville, others) were at least $100 higher, and sometimes $300 higher. My only other trip to Florida, Orlando was the cheapest location.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

If you have the type of flexibility regarding the particular it will behoove you to check around. When I was buying tickets a couple of months ago for travel to Florida. I found that the cheapest airports to fly into were Tampa and Fort Myers. Prices everywhere I checked (Miami, Sarasota, Orlando, Jacksonville, others) were at least $100 higher, and sometimes $300 higher. My only other trip to Florida, Orlando was the cheapest location.

Some of those airports are a long distance from each other such as Jacksonville vs Miami. I wouldn't fly into Fort Meyers unless my final destination was on the west coast of Florida. Same goes for Tampa except I would also consider it for Orlando if the price differential was great enough. We lived in Florida for 8 years and I did a lot of flying on business. Tampa was my favorite airport but that may have changed in the past few years.

[motomem Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close motomem]

Airfares constantly change - sometimes more than once in a day. The airlines actively manage the prices. Your best prices will be found more than two weeks prior to departure. As flights fill up the prices will go up.

MSP seems to be a higher fare airport. I am currently in Austin, MN on business. Flying from Memphis to MSP I had to select a return flight back to Memphis that arrives late. Otherwise the other flight times were coming back with a round trip fare of over $1000. I managed to get a fare of $460.

A $300 fare is a cheap flight nowadays.

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Is there a better time to buy airline tickets?

I signed up for alerts with several airlines here and have watched them for a couple of years. I get emails most days advertising sale prices.

IMO finding cheap airline flights is like finding a good timeshare exchange, you can watch the market and learn how to get the best deal.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Add Jet Blue to the list of airlines that will give you a credit if the price drops after you purchase your tickets. I received an airfare alert yesterday and found that Jet Blue dropped the price from LAX - JFK. I called them up and they gave me the credit for the difference.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

Yes they change, but just like the stock market they can go both up and down. If you are flexible about travel dates and times you may well wish to wait until closer to your date of travel and hope to get seats at bargain prices.
The obvious risk, if travelling at peak times, is that the price actually either goes up or there is no availability nearer the date of travel.
As we generally have fixed travel dates I check flight availability and then book both accommodation at the same time as there is obviously no point in having accommodation and no flights or flights and no accommodation. Once I've booked I no longer look at prices as I can't change what is booked.
There was a long discussion some time ago about whether airlines should have to refund the difference if prices drop after a booking is made. My view is that, unless the customer is also prepared to enter into a contract to pay more if the price increases after booking, it is unreasonable to expect a refund.

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I am currently tracking a trip on Yapta for BDL-MCO non stop. I started last week at 408.00 it went down 2 days ago to 383.00 and today it is up to 662.00 . All in 1 week
Now I have to wait again for it to go down to a reasonable price. So there is a lot of fluctuation in pricing.

[mdurette Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mdurette]

I believe Southwest now flies out of MSP.

They only have 4 non-stop destinations so you more than likely you will have a change. But, their policies can't be beat when it comes to changes for lower cost tickets.

Book your flight with them.....then watch. If a lower fare comes up you can simply switch to it and get the remaining funds as a credit to be used for the next year. No fee to do this. Heck you can even cancel the flight and go to a different airline and still have the credit for a year.