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The Correct Time to Buy Tickets


Bowie MeMe
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It is official and Brian Williams reported it on NBC nightly news on September 15, 2014 at 7:28PM (eastern time).

 

The correct time to buy airlines tickets is Tuesdays at 3PM exactly 7 weeks before you fly! I am so glad to have that information that is JUST TOTALLY MYTH. I do not believe that in this day of "real time" ticketing ( where I have had prices change on me between ordering seat 1 and ordering seat 2) NBC is starting this myth up again -- 4 minute piece no less and advertised all day.

 

Should make life easier on this board because now nobody has to ask what day is the best time to buy tickets. It has been STATED! What jammed phone lines there will be on Tuesdays. Hope they put on extra staff!:p Oh and I wonder what time zone that 3PM refers to:confused:

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The airlines will be sure to mark their prices higher at 3 p.m. Tuesdays, In every time zone just to be sure!! :D :D

 

This is interesting. I hadn't seen the news report, but at some point yesterday afternoon (Tues) I checked the price of a ticket that I was looking at and it had gone up over $200 from the previous day! I checked again this am and it was back down to where it was on Monday.

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This is interesting. I hadn't seen the news report, but at some point yesterday afternoon (Tues) I checked the price of a ticket that I was looking at and it had gone up over $200 from the previous day! I checked again this am and it was back down to where it was on Monday.

 

But...but...can't be true!

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OMG - will airfares stop climbing????

 

Sailing on Carnival to Alaska June 2015. Started watching fare from Atlanta to Seattle on 6 Sept. Fare was $450 and called a friend to see if she thought it was a good price. She said go for it and I checked back to Delta's website and it had gone up to $583. Decided to wait and keep checking...today it has gone up to $589.

 

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start walking to Seattle and hopefully arrive by June!!! :(

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OMG - will airfares stop climbing????

 

Sailing on Carnival to Alaska June 2015. Started watching fare from Atlanta to Seattle on 6 Sept. Fare was $450 and called a friend to see if she thought it was a good price. She said go for it and I checked back to Delta's website and it had gone up to $583. Decided to wait and keep checking...today it has gone up to $589.

 

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start walking to Seattle and hopefully arrive by June!!! :(

 

Are you limiting yourself to Delta? If not, share your dates and we can take a quick look, or you can look at the ITA Matrix

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OMG - will airfares stop climbing????

 

Basically, your analysis period is too short to ascertain trends in fare. If you look at the historical graph of airfares between Atlanta and Seattle for the past year you will notice that you can find many 2-3 week periods where airfares increase--sometime dramatically. However, they always end up decreasing. Thus, set up a fare alert.

Edited by parody
graph did not produce correctly
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Originally, I had no preference to any particular airline. Started checking and Delta and Alaskan were the only airlines to offer nonstop. Hubby's vacation time is limited and we were trying to fly in the day of cruise departure (June 2nd). There are connecting flights available but not sure whether we would be cutting it extremely short in getting from SEA TAC to Pier 91. Then my brother chimed in with an offer to purchase one RT ticket with his Delta Skymiles.

 

So...we are saving by only having to purchase one ticket but it would be very nice for the one ticket not to total nearly $600 (especially when fare was $450 13 days ago)!! Guess I'm surprised there has been such up and down activity this far out from departure date.

 

Suppose I will keep checking...perhaps around 3pm next Tuesday?? LOL :)

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Suppose I will keep checking...perhaps around 3pm next Tuesday?? LOL :)

 

Yes... definitely check around 3pm - maybe even start at 2:30 :).

 

But... flying in the day of?? I know weather should not be a factor with your time period - but???? Anything can happen. Would never do it. Take an extra day of holidays. Good luck. Have fun.

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It is official and Brian Williams reported it on NBC nightly news on September 15, 2014 at 7:28PM (eastern time).

 

The correct time to buy airlines tickets is Tuesdays at 3PM exactly 7 weeks before you fly! I am so glad to have that information that is JUST TOTALLY MYTH. I do not believe that in this day of "real time" ticketing ( where I have had prices change on me between ordering seat 1 and ordering seat 2) NBC is starting this myth up again -- 4 minute piece no less and advertised all day.

 

Should make life easier on this board because now nobody has to ask what day is the best time to buy tickets. It has been STATED! What jammed phone lines there will be on Tuesdays. Hope they put on extra staff!:p Oh and I wonder what time zone that 3PM refers to:confused:

 

This is a myth because I just booked tickets from San Francisco-Athens and Rome-San Francisco for a Queen Elizabeth 14 night med cruise. $1300 all in per passenger on Lufthansa(One of my favorite carriers of all time) with the best schedules.

 

Leave SFO at 2:40 PM arrive in Athens at 5:00 PM.

 

Leave Rome 12:00 Noon and arrive SFO 7:00 PM.

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20 years ago we were flying into Alaska for a cruise. We had an extra day before we started with a pre cruise tour and the rest of our party flew in for just the cruise on the day of the cruise. We had our first flight cancelled for some reason which meant NONE of the flights worked out. We ended up with being 1 day LATE for the pre cruise tour but missed a great day in Fairbanks. The rest of our party also had a "bad weather" delay which made their plane late which meant they missed the last bus to the ship and only because there were 40 passengers stranded did the cruise line hire a bus to drive them to the second port on day 3 of the 7 day cruise.

 

Everybody who travels much now knows that planes fly fuller and there are fewer planes to a destination. If you have only the day of the cruise flight any little hiccup and you loose several days off your cruise -- there is no place to meet up with the ship after it leaves embarkation port. I hope you can perhaps give yourself a little grace period to make the ship. :)

Edited by Bowie MeMe
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Oh, MAN.........................you mean I could have done better than my LAX-FLL (1st class)-BCN-Luton-LHR-LAX (premium econony) than the $1,334 I paid per person by WAITING another 6 months to book?!!

 

According to this genius report I would be booking my return air from LHR-LAX about 1 WEEK before I leave on the trip!!

 

I checked, and I started booking 10 months in advance, finished up 11 days ago, and booked on a Saturday, two Wednesdays, and a Thursday.

 

I'm just doing it all wrong I guess. :D:D

Edited by pcur
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It is official and Brian Williams reported it on NBC nightly news on September 15, 2014 at 7:28PM (eastern time).

 

The correct time to buy airlines tickets is Tuesdays at 3PM exactly 7 weeks before you fly! I am so glad to have that information that is JUST TOTALLY MYTH. I do not believe that in this day of "real time" ticketing ( where I have had prices change on me between ordering seat 1 and ordering seat 2) NBC is starting this myth up again -- 4 minute piece no less and advertised all day.

 

Should make life easier on this board because now nobody has to ask what day is the best time to buy tickets. It has been STATED! What jammed phone lines there will be on Tuesdays. Hope they put on extra staff!:p Oh and I wonder what time zone that 3PM refers to:confused:

 

And you get an extra 5% off if you wear a purple hat when booking and enter SUCKER in the promotion code box!

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Thanks to NBC's factual, authoritative, and end-all report, the rest of us know Monday evening or Tuesday morning are "somewhat better" times to buy tickets. There will be a flood of people scrambling to purchase the "lowest" fares on Tuesday afternoon, and the airlines now know this is a time to support higher fares (or their yield management algorithms will figure it out automatically).

Edited by kenish
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Thanks to NBC's factual, authoritative, and end-all report, the rest of us know Monday evening or Tuesday morning are "somewhat better" times to buy tickets. There will be a flood of people scrambling to purchase the "lowest" fares on Tuesday afternoon, and the airlines now know this is a time to support higher fares (or their yield management algorithms will figure it out automatically).

 

 

 

I've got a good one (we get to fly J class but I always look at what the Y class prices are) - on Friday afternoon I looked at a ticket to São Paulo from Kansas City, and the economy class was $1684 roundtrip. I didn't buy because I was awaiting approval. Last night (Sunday) I got the approval and the exact same flights were $1119. I was amazed. This was for early November, AA via DFW, depart Saturday (arrive Sunday), return Thursday (arrive Friday).

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I've got a good one (we get to fly J class but I always look at what the Y class prices are) - on Friday afternoon I looked at a ticket to São Paulo from Kansas City, and the economy class was $1684 roundtrip. I didn't buy because I was awaiting approval. Last night (Sunday) I got the approval and the exact same flights were $1119. I was amazed. This was for early November, AA via DFW, depart Saturday (arrive Sunday), return Thursday (arrive Friday).

 

$1200 MCI-DFW-GIG in J? Very good deal!

 

I know it's a completely different market but consider about double that a good deal between NYC and LON for my business class tickets!

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$1200 MCI-DFW-GIG in J? Very good deal!

 

 

 

I know it's a completely different market but consider about double that a good deal between NYC and LON for my business class tickets!

 

 

No that's the Y price, but when I book J I also have to provide what the price in Y was, so I'm always aware.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Who listens to Brian Williams on anything these days....?

 

I have not found the mainstream news a viable source on any subject for a long time.

 

When it come to travel issues, you better info on cruise critic.

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Zach1213, we had this happen on a Princess cruise we were monitoring for a while before we booked. We started to notice that every Friday afternoon the rate would go up, to come down again on the Monday. We are in the travel business ourselves and it is a known fact that most people book on a weekend when they have time to browse, so we were not surprised. Not sure if this is always the case taht rates are higher on the weekend. Could be that you should be wearing BEAV's purple hat ;)

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