Buy airline tickets 47 days in advance & on Tuesday afternoon
Posted By RichC on June 17, 2015
Now I’ll be the first to admit, I spend too much time agonizing over purchasing things wondering if I’m buying the right model or brand … and am I
paying too much. The Internet has only complicated matters since there is even more information to process. It’s the same thing when booking travel … although with travel/airfare the saving is not a couple dollar difference between models or brands … but $hundreds$ between flights and airlines.
Thankfully a few travel sites and blogs have helped by analyzing their collected data on price and time. The prevailing wisdom (at least for 2015) is to buy 47 days in advance and to shop on Tuesday afternoon.
Currently, I’m looking to book flights for a trip to see my daughter and son-in-law in Minneapolis later this summer; we’ve pretty much blocked out the travel weekend after coordinating our schedules (not the easiest of tasks in itself). A quick look at the flights for my favorite airline – Southwest – had me ready to book tickets, when my wife let me know that she didn’t want any connections (I’m sure she was thinking about Taylor’s recent fiasco returning from overseas).
So back to the higher priced non-stop Delta flights and deciding whether or not to burn our Skymiles on this trip rather than the overpriced“basic economy” tickets. By the way, those “basic economy” tickets are the no-change, non-refundable, no-seat selection, back of the plane cattle section seats … although for $40 they’ll give you the privilege (#sarcasm) of picking one of the few available, rear of the plane, “ tiny” seats. (how much more uncomfortable can it get? — don’t ask).
Back to the struggle to save a penny or two. I’m thinking that it might be worth spending 50,000 miles … but would really like to save those for a special longer domestic flight or maybe an upgrade when we go overseas again?
Decisions, decisions?
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