I am finally ready to book air for our trip end of October (or first week of November). I have been watching airfare for months. I missed the very short sale that happened a week or so ago amongst most of the major carriers.
I was thinking about going ahead and still purchasing, but I see that for two of the routes I am watching (United - Boise - Den - Orlando) (Delta - Boise Atlanta Orlando) that seats, at least heading to Orlando are only 10 to 15% booked. This would seem to me that another sale is coming, but of course, there is no way to know for sure. I do know that I am NOT getting any “only 3 seats left” messages for both those carriers. SW is booking up, but they are my second to last choice anyway.
I booked my late October airfare some time ago and have already seen some price drops. I will say that my August fares had the most price drops roughly between 80-90 days out. I’m not sure I expect much in the way of fare changes for late October though. No idea why I feel that way. Just a gut feeling.
I would keep track of the prices and seats on your flights. If the planes are booking up, the prices aren’t going down and go ahead and grab one when they are at the bottom of the range you have seen. If they are empty you can wait until 60-90 days.
If the price drops significantly after you have bought, you can call and asknif they can rebook you at the lower price. That may at least get you a flight credit!
Many airlines will let you see the seats early in the process. Its an intensive process, so I only do it if I have picked a couple of flighr options.
Example, I am tracking a Delta December flights and just did a search for my date. On the page that shows flight options you have a choice to “view seats”
This only works if every ticket books a guaranteed seat. We often don’t pay a premium to book our seats, so a seat chart wouldn’t capture our 5 seats sold.
True - that would depend on the airline then? Alaska (I’ve been stalking an upgrade) allows eveyone to book a seat as does Delta. Southwest, of course, tou can’t get any info. And I will have to keep that in mind for AA and Jetblue.
I usually find the 75-100 day mark the least expensive on average. Could it go lower here or there, yes. But this still typically seems to be the lowest point. The only excepts would be holiday travel.
Unless it changed in the last few months, we did not find this to be true since they switched over to a choice between Saver and Main fares a couple of years ago. The Saver fare doesn’t allow you to pick a seat. It is assigned at check in or the gate. Apparently, the fine print says that you are not guaranteed a seat on the flight with a Saver fare. In a flight last year, Alaska reduced the size of its aircraft and there were about 12 of us who didn’t have a seat on the flight. They went through and offered perks for people to be bumped. We are all adults and didn’t need to sit together on a rather short flight. So, I thought we would save $160 flying Saver fare. There was not another flight until the next day! Long story short, 4 passengers didn’t show up, a family of 4 opted for the perks. So, we got to fly as scheduled. Needless to say, we have not flown Saver fare since because we don’t have that flexibility!
There may be an app out there since there is an App for everything these days. However, I am doing what @heathernoel is doing - drilling down and seeing how many seats are booked. And yes, @ISUamanda is correct, it will not reflect basic economy fares.
However:
1 - There are a limited amount of basic economy fares and these are regulated (at least w/ United and Delta) to the back of the plane.
2 - Using Delta again as an example above, all of those blue seats are Main Cabin fares only, economy can not book them. They are almost empty. I am waiting for main cabin prices to go down vs. watching the basic economy.
3 - While it is a sales ploy, it is also helpful that most of the carries will now tell you if there are only a few seats remaining at a certain fare. As mentioned above, this was not the case for any of my dates/lines.
I am perusing flights this evening. I am super excited to book, but I don’t want to go through the hassle of canceling and rebooking if prices go down, so I am holding for the moment.
For the route/date I want for Delta, there are a few more seats booked, but still less than 1/4 full for shown, Main Cabin for one leg. The rest of the legs are quite empty.
There was one return leg/time that was showing the “only 3 seats remain” notification. I prefer a later return time, so I am not jumping, but if that had been on the return time I wanted, I would probably just book at this point.
