When is the Best Time to Buy Cheap Airfares? I am not sure how “clairvoyant” I am but I will provide some facts that might shed some light on “When is the best time to buy air travel?” I wish I could wave a magic wand and instantly tell you the exact and perfect time to buy air travel. In reality the best time to buy is city-pair specific and depends on your tolerance for risk. That’s right!! Purchasing airline tickets is very similar to the stock market where there are normally only a few perfect times a year to purchase. Most people I speak to have more than a slight pang of anxiety just before hitting that button that dings their credit card because they know that the person on the plane next to them — just might be paying less. That said there are many timely tips and tricks to making the perfect purchase. For those of you who wish to get into the details then read on — or skip to the end for the tips and tricks…

The purchase of airline tickets consists of 3 major components:

• Airfares
• Flight Schedules
• Airline Cheap Seat Inventory

ALL three items must be in alignment to get the very best air travel deal. For this particular discussion I will limit my comments to U.S. and Canadian travel (International travel has a completely different set of issues). Let’s start with a brief background of these 3 components.

Airfares

90+ percent of all purchased airfares in the U.S and Canada are “filed” by the airlines continuously each day to a clearing house in Washington DC called ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Company). ATPCO was originally a government agency until deregulation in the late 1970’s. It is now owned by several dozen airlines and acts as the distribution hub for over 60 million air airfare filed worldwide.

Each airline files their airfares continuously during the day to ATPCO where they are aggregated and distributed to all “subscribers” (airlines and global distribution systems which power the online agencies e.g. Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz) at specific times. For U.S/Canadian airfares distribution occurs on weekdays at 10:00am, 12:30pm and 8:00pm and on weekends at 5:00pm EST.

The airlines and online agencies then load these airfares onto their quoting/booking systems within 2-6 hours. The evening feeds are loaded between 12:00am and 1:30am the next day.

Air airfares are filed in a price ladder (lowest ticket price to highest). This price ladder allows the airlines the flexibility to control the price that they will sell you a particular seat. This price range can be quite startling with a gap of over $1000 from lowest to highest. Obviously, their goal is to sell as many of the highest price seats that consumers are willing to buy. This is where the black magic of who gets the cheapest for a particular seat begins.

There are normally several dozen airfare price points in a particular city pair. The airfares include 20+ rules which further allow the airline flexibility on restricting the lowest price seats. These rule restrictions include: passenger type, day/time, seasons, flight restrictions, advance purchase, minimum stay, maximum stay, airfare combinations, surcharges, travel periods and sales restrictions. This means a particular seat can be sold at dozens of different prices based on an airfare and its rules Tens of thousands of air airfares change each day!

Farecompare.com is one of the handful of “subscribers” worldwide to this raw air airfare & rule information and our unique technology processes these air airfares very quickly and only we distribute this information to consumers immediately! Hours before it is loaded on the airline ticket quoting/booking sites, including the airlines themselves.

Flight Schedules
An airline flight schedule is the complete set of all flights and times that an airline operates an airplane or shares that operation with another airline (codeshare).

The bulk of all flight schedules are filed by the airlines with OAG (Official Airline Guide) and Innovata. They act as the distribution hub to quoting/booking sites for flight information, which they send out a couple of times weekly.

Additionally, the quoting/booking sites get instant flight update notifications from the airlines each day so that last minute issues (cancellation, mechanical failures, etc) can be posted immediately.

A particular flight-information record includes the maximum seat count; cabin information as well as defining which inventory buckets can be sold for which seats on the plane.

Airplane Seat Inventory
Inventory is the key variable in the quest for the best price and is ultimately controlled by the airline. The airline has sophisticated systems that use historical models and current real-time sales information to decide how many seats they will sell at a particular price point on a particular flight at a particular point in time. This is called “yield management” and it is a very powerful tool the airlines use to maximize profit.

The question quoting/booking sites ask the airline is very simple — “Will you sell me this seat at this price, if not, at what price will you sell it to me?”

The answer to this question in theory can be different every time you ask it. That’s right every time you ask it!!! Each agency or shopping-site could get a different answer because one of the variables that yield systems use to make a sell decision is “who is requesting?”

Now you know why consumers get so frustrated when shopping for air travel and why you try 3-5 different sites before making a decision.

If it costs an airline 13 cents per mile to run an aircraft, they have to figure out how many seats at certain price points must be sold to make a profit. They will sell some seats at 5 cents a mile and others at 1$ per mile. Obviously to get the best price, it is better to purchase when the cents-per-mile is at the low end of the scale.

Airlines actively manage their domestic revenue in 4-5 month cycles so if you are purchasing travel 4-5 months in advance, know that the airlines have normally only released mid-price inventory and are happy to sell you seats at 20-30 cents per mile. This is definitely not the best nor cheapest airline ticket price.

Cheap Airfares & Airline Ticket Insider Tips
OK, so you either have put up with the technical side of the story, or you cheated and skipped to here. Let me boil down all this mumbo jumbo into a set of tips related to the original question “Best Time to Buy Cheap Airline Tickets?”

Know what a good price is. Farecompare.com keeps over 2 years of historical air airfare information that allows you to quickly see where the current market prices falls. If the current airfare is at or near an all time low then this is the perfect time to buy.

Check the price volatility of your city pair. If the prices are bouncing around by $100 or more a few times a month or more, make sure you buy on a down swing. Farecompare.com shows a 30 day history bar chart so you can quickly check volatility.

Know when the best time to buy was LAST year. Farecompare.com shows a 1 year history graph where you can easily see what happened to airline ticket prices historically. That doesn’t mean it will happen this year but it is part of a “savvy” air travel shopper’s arsenal.

Know the price trend for your city pair. If the airline ticket prices are trending up because of airline increases related to fuel, heavy demand and there is short supply it still may be a good time to buy even if the price is not near an all time low.

Sign up for Free Airfare Alerts that tell you exactly when airline ticket prices have significantly changed. When cheap seats are limited the people that are first to know have first crack.

Last minute is useful for those with flexibility and daring. There are occasions in certain city pairs where a last minute purchase can be a super deal. These are perfect for those with ultimate flexibility and who can pick up and go at a moments notice. These are daring for those that are planning to attend a family reunion …
The business and leisure price break point is normally 14 days advance purchase (sometimes 21 days). As most business travelers know — you are not likely to get a good price inside of 14 days.

When is the Best Time to Buy Cheap Airfares?
Most people stumble upon a good deal. The volume of air travel shopping queries each minute is staggering and some of those queries hit the jackpot. Using the information and tools found at Farecompare.com, you don’t have to happen upon a good deal, you can find it.

“When is the Best Time to Buy Cheap Airfares?”

When you have quickly and easily researched all aspects of your purchase and click the “do-it” button with the confidence that you are making the most informed decision.