# Is the 30 day point the absolute latest for good ticket prices?



## boyblue (Nov 2, 2010)

I was told by a travel agent recently, that the 30 day point is the absolute latest for good ticket prices?  When you get inside of the 30 day period, even the price on the unsold low fare tickets go up.

Has this been your experience?


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## LisaRex (Nov 2, 2010)

Yes. It is counter-intuitive but there it is.


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## Pat H (Nov 2, 2010)

I thought it was 21 days since a lot of fares need to be purchased 21 days or more ahead of time.


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## siesta (Nov 2, 2010)

ive gotten great fares the week of. I don't believe there is necessarily a rhyme or reason to it. it just happens.


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## boyblue (Nov 2, 2010)

Pat H said:


> I thought it was 21 days since a lot of fares need to be purchased 21 days or more ahead of time.



I guess if it were a must I could wait an additional week but I was just wondering what the safe cutoff point would be.


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## scrapngen (Nov 2, 2010)

That's probably a "safe" assumption, but I have gotten amazing last minute rates once in awhile - even to HI over Easter last year. 

There are also some airlines that do last minute weekend discounts. 

I sure wouldn't plan on it, though, if I needed to travel at a specific time to a specific place.


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## jlwquilter (Nov 2, 2010)

Although I assume you are looking at domestic aifare, I have gotten really good international fares twice at the one week mark, give or take a few days - I don't remember exactly. The 2nd time I got the price off a discount airfare website like CheapOAir. I was floored by it as it was almost $2,000 cheaper PER PERSON than what the airline was offering directly on it's own website. It made the differnce between going to Paris and staying home. My best guess it that discount airline had unsold tickets it had bought from the legacy way back when and priced the seats to sell - and I was the lucky buyer.

I HATE the guessing game of buying airfare. HATE IT. I am now doing it for our trip to Calgary next summer.


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## MichaelColey (Nov 2, 2010)

The biggest factor is the route that you're flying.

It makes sense when you understand how airline fares work.  Airlines usually have dozens of fares that apply to any particular flight.  Each fare has restrictions to specific inventory buckets, advance purchase days, days of the week, times of the day, routing options, date ranges, etc.  The price you see when you search for flights is the best available fare whose criteria match.  As the cheaper inventory buckets sell out, only the more expensive fares remain.  As it gets closer to the dates, the cheaper fares with longer advance purchase requirements go away, leaving just more expensive ones.

Some of the more common advance purchase days I've seen include 0, 3, 7, 10, 14, 21 and 30.  Sometimes, the cheapest fares don't require any advance purchase (usually on routes where low cost carriers compete), so you can still get good prices at the last minute.

Personally, I start watching for low fares as soon as I know when I need to fly.  I usually don't find really good fares until 1-3 months out (but there are always exceptions).  Once I get 1-2 months out, I get a lot less picky about how good of a fare I really need.  I seldom go beyond 1 month out, because it's much more rare to catch good fares but it's very common to have considerably higher fares.  If I were going to hold out for a better fare in the last month, I would take a very close look at fares to see which ones have what advance purchase requirements.  If I see fares that are near the current prices that only require 0, 3 or 7 days, I might wait longer.


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## Passepartout (Nov 2, 2010)

If I'm looking or a cheap seat, I'll check the seating chart to see how full the flight is. Lots of empty seats=low fare. Full flight=no discounts. Maybe just guessing, but you can't overlook supply and demand.

Jim Ricks


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## jlwquilter (Nov 3, 2010)

My biggest problem is that I simply don't know what a good price for the flight I need is. We like to go different places so each time I am searching for a completely new route. I see a flight for say $550 per person at 8 months out, says 5 seats left (I need 3). Is that a good price? Will it only go up or will there be better prices closer to the needed flight date? Who knows? Certainly not me. I can't possibly track all flights we might take for a couple of years to see when the best prices are historically offered. And historical information is perhaps less useful now anyway, with all the changes going on.

I find the whole thing very frustrating and a big stress producer. It almost makes me not want to travel - or at least fly. Buy we live in SE Florida - driving to Montana (or similar) is simply not an option.


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## boyblue (Nov 3, 2010)

MichaelColey said:


> If I were going to hold out for a better fare in the last month, I would take a very close look at fares to see which ones have what advance purchase requirements.  If I see fares that are near the current prices that only require 0, 3 or 7 days, I might wait longer.



I get it!  We search for our upcoming location with similar dates 7-10 days out and compare it to the actual dates which could be 6 – 8 weeks out...
If there's little difference then maybe we can wait.



jlwquilter said:


> My biggest problem is that I simply don't know what a good price for the flight I need is. We like to go different places so each time I am searching for a completely new route. I see a flight for say $550 per person at 8 months out, says 5 seats left (I need 3). Is that a good price? Will it only go up or will there be better prices closer to the needed flight date? Who knows? Certainly not me. I can't possibly track all flights we might take for a couple of years to see when the best prices are historically offered. And historical information is perhaps less useful now anyway, with all the changes going on.
> 
> I find the whole thing very frustrating and a big stress producer. It almost makes me not want to travel - or at least fly. Buy we live in SE Florida - driving to Montana (or similar) is simply not an option.



We have this same issue.  It's not bad in the northeast because you're going into either Boston or New York but headed west that's another story!


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## x3 skier (Nov 3, 2010)

jlwquilter said:


> My biggest problem is that I simply don't know what a good price for the flight I need is.
> I find the whole thing very frustrating and a big stress producer. It almost makes me not want to travel - or at least fly. Buy we live in SE Florida - driving to Montana (or similar) is simply not an option.



If you go to Expedia, they have a track of fares over a year or so. This allows you to see what they have been in the past so you have a good view of what any given fare is in relation to the past.  http://www.expedia.com/daily/trend_tracker/default.asp

Here is another link that tells you what might be a good time to buy. http://www.farecompare.com/articles/when-to-buy/when-to-buy-travel-advice/

Cheers


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## MichaelColey (Nov 3, 2010)

boyblue said:


> I get it! We search for our upcoming location with similar dates 7-10 days out and compare it to the actual dates which could be 6 – 8 weeks out...
> If there's little difference then maybe we can wait.


That's one way to check it.  Another is to use FareCompare's Fare Display tool.  For instance, if I look at DFW-MCO, many of the cheapest fares require 14 or 10 days advance purchase, so I probably wouldn't hold out any longer than 14 days.  DFW-HNL has good 0 day advance purchase fares, but it's just one airline (and driving isn't a backup option!) so I probably wouldn't wait beyond 21 or 60 days (the other common advance purchase requirements for the current best fares).  DFW-DEN has several 0 day advance purchase fares from different airlines, so I might wait until the last minute (although I would watch it very closely).  DFW-TYO has a lot of 3 day fares, so I might wait until the last week before for a good fare.


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## jlwquilter (Nov 4, 2010)

x3 skier said:


> If you go to Expedia, they have a track of fares over a year or so. This allows you to see what they have been in the past so you have a good view of what any given fare is in relation to the past.  http://www.expedia.com/daily/trend_tracker/default.asp
> 
> Here is another link that tells you what might be a good time to buy. http://www.farecompare.com/articles/when-to-buy/when-to-buy-travel-advice/
> 
> Cheers



Thanks! I didn't know (no surprise there - i am just learning this stuff now that we are traveling more) that Expedia had a trend tracker. It's really helpful for those routes it tracks. I now feel decent about the Cancun tickets I bought a few days ago... right on the average. I perhaps should have held out longer to buy but as I said, this is stressful for me so paying a tad more than I could have _maybe_ got and just having it done with has value to me. As long as I didn't pay some outrageous price I am fine.

Unfortunately Calgary isn't a tracked city so I am left in the dark there.

I do use FareCompare and FareCast all the time but again, sometimes where we want to fly isn't tracked. Can't have it all I guess!


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## MichaelColey (Nov 4, 2010)

Go to history.farecompare.com and you can look up the historical best prices for PBI-YYC.  The current prices are fairly good.


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## jlwquilter (Nov 4, 2010)

Michael, would you be kind enough to post the actual link to the Farecompare history area? I've tried several times now to find it but I can't  . Thanks!


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## MichaelColey (Nov 4, 2010)

Just go to history.farecompare.com.  That redirects to the actual location on their site, but is much easier to remember.  I never have been able to find it by navigating on their site.


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## x3 skier (Nov 4, 2010)

MichaelColey said:


> Just go to history.farecompare.com.  That redirects to the actual location on their site, but is much easier to remember.  I never have been able to find it by navigating on their site.



I also have never been able to find it from the main site. I used to have a bookmark for it but it vanished. That is why I suggested Expedia .

Appreciate the link.

Cheers


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## chriskre (Nov 4, 2010)

jlwquilter said:


> My biggest problem is that I simply don't know what a good price for the flight I need is. We like to go different places so each time I am searching for a completely new route. I see a flight for say $550 per person at 8 months out, says 5 seats left (I need 3). Is that a good price? Will it only go up or will there be better prices closer to the needed flight date? Who knows? Certainly not me. I can't possibly track all flights we might take for a couple of years to see when the best prices are historically offered. And historical information is perhaps less useful now anyway, with all the changes going on.
> 
> I find the whole thing very frustrating and a big stress producer. It almost makes me not want to travel - or at least fly. Buy we live in SE Florida - driving to Montana (or similar) is simply not an option.



I too live in South Florida and hardly ever repeat a city but I find the people over on flyertalker helpful when I have a newbie question about airfare or hotel prices.  They fly way way more than I ever will and they pretty much live on the airfare computer sites.   Something I find boring.  :zzz:   
But that's why there is a forum for everybody out there. 
I'd much rather talk TS's with ya'll.


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## jlwquilter (Nov 4, 2010)

Thanks Michael - that worked. I have bookmarked it. Now I have to figure out how to read the data. I did find their article on how to do the reading but apparently I need to go thru it slowly as it isn't obvious to me  . All I can see is that I certainly seemed to miss the dates to buy at the lowest prices  What I need to figure out is how to determine/guess if the lowest prices "of the year" will swing back around and I can catch them this time now that I am actively looking.

I did get a little closer to finding this graph thing on my own - had to log in and then set the trips up (I did one for each SE FL airport - PBI, FLL and MIA to YYC -Calgary). Then I clicked on more details under each trip and that got me some data but not nearly what your link does. Why the heck do they make it so hard to find?? What is the point of that?? Jeez.


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## jlwquilter (Nov 4, 2010)

MichaelColey said:


> Go to history.farecompare.com and you can look up the historical best prices for PBI-YYC.  *The current prices are fairly good*.



Really? I am asking this is all honesty as I trying to figure this out - especially as I now have your lovely link. What I see now for fares for PBI-YYC is over $650 for my dates (6/30 or 7/1 thru 7/15, 2011) which is WAY higher than the graph shows for lowest prices. But I also see that the current price I see is WAY higher than their graph showes for ANY time in the past. Either I am even most lost understanding these graphs (entirely possible, even probable) than I thought or airfare took a huge jump up in the past few days.

Can you tell me what you saw/thought to say the current prices are fairly good, just so I can understand?


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## jlwquilter (Nov 4, 2010)

Oh, and I am only getting one line on the graph - the red lowest price line. How do I get the other lines (average price and highest price)?

Gosh, I ned to take a break. My head is starting to ache and this shouldn't be this hard! But I love learning new things and am thrilled that all of you have given me new tools (once I get the clue on how to use these new tools that is  ) to try to pierce the dark around airfares!!


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## djs (Nov 5, 2010)

siesta said:


> ive gotten great fares the week of. I don't believe there is necessarily a rhyme or reason to it. it just happens.



Same here, last year got Boston to Maui for $425 r/t to Maui with 5 days notice (and fare was upgradable).  If I were able to visit my brother in Madison next weekend I could get r/t fare for $250 leaving next Friday and coming back the following Monday.  $250 is only about $50 more than the cheapest fares I've seen when planning ahead.


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## Tacoma (Nov 8, 2010)

jlwquilter

I firmly believe flights to Canada and especially out of Canada are much more expensive.  Don't know exactly where you are in Florida but last summer we were going from Calgary to Hilton Head.  I knew flying to a small airport would be ridiculous so I got a timeshare in Orlando (easy) and flew in and out of Orlando and drove up to Hilton Head.  I paid $425 return.  Orlando is a very popular destination so flights are priced better.  Good luck.

Joan


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