Purchase Timing For International Air Tickets

[jfchandler]

Santi, you raise some good points... And I've never suggested the same factors apply everywhere or for every flight market...

For the London to BKK segment at Christmas time, I can envision that waiting late might not produce a good fare, probably because there's a ton of Brits looking to get out of chilly Britain and head for tropical Thailand at Christmas time...and to sample the various holiday pleasures on offer here...

For the BKK to LA segment at Christmas (which really in my case was the Japan to L.A. segment because that's where the transpacific flight link was being made), I don't think the same seasonal factors apply. I don't think there's the same market of Thais or Japanese rushing to get to L.A. at Christmas time....

I suppose the lesson here is to learn one's travel market, be aware of the seasonal factors, and make one's travel decisions accordingly...

Fair point, but I often test prices for upcoming flights against the advance booking prices and know enough about seasonality now to make some crude adjustments for that, so I am not completely flying by wires in my belief that booking late is a mistake on the London route.

My next flight is an EVA Air direct flight from London to BKK. Out to BKK on 28 December, back on 28 February. It was the cheapest direct fare I could find on 13 September and cost £769. That flight is priced today, 15 days away, at £868 (and is still the cheapest direct flight). I use Opodo.com - maybe others can find a slightly cheaper one. Maybe in 5 days time it will be cheaper than £769.

Actually the price is not as much different as I would have expected - I was expecting to see something like £1,000 for a 15 day away booking in the Xmas/New Year period, so I concede that the downside of booking late is less severe than I thought.

Maybe the carriers on the LA route are different in their pricing strategies. Booking late works for you on the LA route. Booking a few months ahead works for me on the London route. Lets agree to carry on regardless with our different strategies.Otherwise we run the risk of becoming airline fare geeks.

[craigt3365]

It's a tough thing to beat the airlines at this game. When I got my tickets, I had been searching every day, at different times during the day, using the auto search agents of Bing.com and Kayak.com, using 7-10+ different search engines...including the actual airline's sites, etc. Hey, I'm retired, so I can do this...and if it saves me a few bucks, then more beer for me!

I was refreshing Delta.com when this new price popped up. It was not on any consolidator website. Only Delta's. And it was $200 less than my previous search. I snatched it up immediately and never saw another price like that...though I didn't search as hard for sure.

Factors that influence the price are many. Big ones for me are doing a search mid-week (seems weekends have the highest price). Trying to avoid peak seasons (June-August travel seems to be highest, as well as around the XMas holidays). Longer trips cost more than shorter one (seems if you want a 9 week trip, it could be more than one which is a bit less than 8 weeks).

Crazy stuff....

[jfchandler]

Craig, I hadn't really used Bing before to search for and monitor airfare prices. But after your post, I figured I'd set up a Bing travel profile and use it to look at the LA and BKK segment. In particular, I decided to test Loma's comment above about it supposedly being cheaper to buy the LA to BKK roundtrip vs. the BKK to LA roundtrip.

I've never found that to be particularly the case. In my experience, there doesn't seem to be any predictable, repeatable price advantage gained by starting with an L.A. origin ticket, and for those living in LOS, it adds the complexity of having a preset time limit for making the return trip.

For whatever it's worth, for my one data point test this morning, Bing showed just the opposite, with almost a $100 price advantage to buying a BKK origin ticket vs. an L.A. origin one... for the same model travel dates I've been using... leaving this Dec. 23 and returning Dec. 29.

Search result screen captures posted below....

BKK to LAX - $1383

LAX to BKK - $1476

Edited December 18, 2010 by jfchandler

[jfchandler]

So then I figured, OK, maybe that's a fluke, so let's compare the same flight segments and dates using Sidestep instead of Bing.

PS - One thing I noticed about Bing, which isn't particularly helpful, is that its choose flexible flying dates to get the best fares function appears to be limited only to U.S. and Canada flight departure cities. I couldn't find a way in Bing to let me search flexible departure dates starting with a flight origin in Bangkok.

In any event, when I ran the comparison in Sidestep using the same dates and flight segments, the price differential in favor of starting with a ticket in Bangkok vs. L.A. grew even larger....

$1289 one stop best fare BKK to LAX

$1456 two stop and $1507 best fare LAX to BKK

Interestingly, Sidestep also produced a lower overall available fare for the BKK to LAX trip than Bing did, for that particular trip....

Edited December 18, 2010 by jfchandler

[jfchandler]

And then, for comparison, back to the American Airlines site where, by shifting travel a few days to departing Dec. 25 and returning Dec. 30, I was still able as of this morning to price a BKK-LAX-BKK trip for $1042 all in...

In looking at the AA and Sidestep sites that allow one to see fares for a particular flight day by day without having to rerun a new search every time, it's clear that the prices can vary wildly even within the same week....

Just as one example, in Christmas week on AA, the outbound to LA ticket alone on one day from BKK was above $1300 and then for the same BKK to LA flight another day later in the week the same outbound only segment was under $500.....

The lesson here, I think, is that is really pays to use a travel web site that allows you to easily price the trip you want to take by looking at the fare prices day by day....without having to re-run a new search in order to see different date pairings.

[witold]

For flying internationally out of the USA, buying in advance is the best. "last minute discounts" are a MYTH. That is simply not how US airlines operate. That said, as the flight departure date gets closer, they may release more seats at a given rate, but that is a very risky proposition. Chances are that you will not catch those seats and will have to buy more expensive seats.

Trust me on this, I do enough last minute travel and I have yet to get any unusually good pricing. It just doesn't happen.

Also, 1100 vs 1050 is a pretty crappy example. I would not call 4% substantial savings - that is a pretty lousy reward for the amount of risk you take. You are much more likely to be forced to buy a 1350 ticket (23% over). And the availability and dates are usually very limited for the discount tickets for last minute in my experience.

***

Your best strategy is to simply familiarize yourself with the options available to you and then monitor how the pricing fluctuates. For Thailand and LA, I think Thai Airways is to watch out for, and there may be other similar situations. Don't just rely on the kayak.com and similar price engines - they all draw form the same datafeed - and this datafeed is very limited and doesn't show some discount tickets.

After you do your research and know the general price, you will know how cheap your ticket can get. When you see it being sold at that price, just buy it. That is as good as it's going to get. I would also research some credit card companies cash back offers. I have seen some cards that give 5% on "Travel". If that includes plane tickets, that would be substantial savings.

Most people who think they can get last minute deals simply haven't done enough research to see that the 'special' price they got was available 2 months ago as well and they should consider themselves lucky it showed up again and they didn't get hit with last minute premium.

[jfchandler]

Witold, you obviously didn't bother to read my actual posts...

I wasn't flying out of L.A.... I was flying BKK to LA and back to BKK roundtrip... That was the flight and ticket purchases I was discussing throughout the thread here...

In responding to one of Loma's comments, suggesting that buying the ticket starting in L.A. would be cheaper, I did model two identical Christmas week flights... one originating in BKK and one in L.A. and compared the prices. Contrary to Loma's argument, the BKK originating flight came out cheaper both times I modeled it..

But regarding the BKK to L.A. roundtrip that I actually was posting about and discussing, the savings and difference wasn't $50, but more like several hundred dollars...

The week before Christmas, one week prior, I could have bought a RT BKK-LAX flight for Christmas week for $1042... When I had priced that same trip at various times two to three months prior, the exact same trip at best price was $1300 or more...

Because I had tracked the Christmas fare so long in the fall, and saw nothing close to my $1000 target all thru September and October and into early November, I finally snapped up a Thanksgiving week RT BKK to L.A. trip for about $1100 (minus a 2% credit card rebate). I don't know what the pricing of the Thanksgiving trip would have been 2-3 months prior, because I hadn't really been planning to travel then and was only searching for Christmas fares at the time.

[jfchandler]

Awhile back, I set-up an ongoing search in MS's Bing travel site for a RT flight from BKK to LAX in June 2011... And just to see and compare, I set up another ongoing search for the exact same flight and days except in reverse, LAX to BKK... Everything else the same, one adult flying economy.

Got the latest results in email today from Bing.... BKK to LAX RT $1360.... LAX to BKK RT $1399.

Which is cheaper, starting in LAX or BKK? BKK wins again.

[Taggart]

I don't make it difficult. After twenty four years of flying back and forth every year or two from Toronto to Bangkok, my wife and I know what a good deal is. Last spring, saw a sale on the Air Canada website for Thailand. It was CDN $1019 (all inclusive). Paid and booked a seat for last November. The price was a steal. Noticed lately, that the price of the flights the other way, from Bangkok to Toronto are at least CDN $300 dearer, than they are starting from Toronto.

[rick75]

My experiences are travelling from Brisbane to Bangkok now with Thai Airways mostly, BNE-BKK-BNE are mostly around 30% cheaper than BKK-BNE-BKK, I have checked many times, Thais travelling to Australia are ripped off, I have found with Thai, booking around 60 days in advance you get the best price, after that the fares go up, travelling Jan - April you get cheap fares around $800au to $950, then the fares go up to $1100 - $1300 au, Sept-Nov is another time you will get cheap flights. I don't subscribe to the cheap last minute fairs idea either, I have checked plenty of times and not found cheap flights, well not cheaper than if i had bought them 2 months earlier.

Maybe in different markets where they need to fill the planes, or another airline that is not run the way Thai airways is, it may be different.

[jfchandler]

The only way Thai Airways is run is to gouge its customers on ticket prices, and expect you to pay more any time you buy a ticket from them than you're likely to pay from almost any other carrier on the same international route.

[rick75]

Yeh Jf, thats where I was heading, but Thai are the only airline that run direct flights BNE - BKK without a stop over, I could fly British or Qantas and save a $100- $200 but they both have stop overs wether Sydney or Singapore and I have been down the Air Asia road, they are cheap but when things go wrong like flights delayed etc and you have to buy new connecting flights out of your own pocket they soon become very expensive.

While Thai are not the cheapest they do run a good service.

Cheers

[jfchandler]

FYI, I was listening to a popular consumer advocacy radio program from the U.S. the other day. The host, a well regarded consumer advocate, was saying that Americans were getting ripped off on air travel to Europe.

According to him (Clark Howard), the typical air fares these days from the U.S. to Europe are often $150 or more higher than comparable flights from Europe to the U.S. I can't vouch for that with personal experience, but that's what he was reporting.

[nisakiman]

I read somewhere farly recently (sorry, can't remember where) that the optimum time to buy air tickets is about 8 weeks in advance. If I remember where I read it I'll post the link.

It ties in with my experiences. I generally manage to get tickets (ATH-BKK-ATH mostly) at about their price nadir if I book a couple of months ahead, although I haven't researched it like jfchandler has, so I might be kidding myself!

[AllyB]

I often travel to Europe from BKK and spend many hours crusing around various web sites to get the best deal. I am completely free from restriction on when to fly or not (subject to national visa restrictions) so my conclusions may not fit everybody's circumstances. My experience has taught me several things:

1) depending on the airlines the best prices seem to be available anything from 6 - 10 weeks before departure

2) length of stay does seem to have a difference at the 1 month's duraton mark

3) check the dates of national holidays at both ends , being slightly askew from these date can find cheaper flights as everybody else flocks on to the holiday dates

4) check the currency you're being charged in is the same you pay your card in, I find card curency exchange rates are about 8% worse than inter- bank telegraphic transfer rates

5) if you do have specific dates in mind, don't repeatedly search for the correct dates when fishing for price patterns, just use them as test data to get feedback (ie prices), judge the pricing information this reveals then book with your real dates. Software records how intense are the hits on the same date.

6) business class prices tend to stay the same, it's the restricted economy prices that change the most

7) if your flight involves a transfer, you might want to book mixed cabin classes for differnt legs, you can most often get these tickets direct from the airline Or, for the brave you can book separte tickets for separate legs, but you'll get stung if caught-out in a delay. From a differnet perspective, instead of "getting stung", you could call it an unexpected, but expensive, mini City-Break holiday. I've had one of those in Amsterdam thanks to some Icelandic volcanic ash.

8) lastly, double check everything, preferably with someone else who sees what IS there and not what you think is there, before clicking the Confirm button.

Hope my experience can help others

PS do whatever you can to avoid Charles De Gaul airport

[jazzbo]

OOPS ... wrong topic

Edited January 7, 2011 by jazzbo

[ferritmaster]

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

Came across this site last week.

Apparently it is what travel agents use to check for the cheapest air fares at any given time.

You cannot buy tickets from this site but it tells you the flight numbers and leaves it to you to go to the appropriate airline website.

It worked for me after a week of searching for a February flight to Bangkok.

Hope this may be helpful to someone.

[jfchandler]

Ferrit, thanks for posting that link... I've never known that site before, but I do know the information system that runs it...

I tried modeling several different varieties of RTs from BKK to L.A. It did find and show pretty much the lowest fare I know to be available...under $1000 with China Eastern on a variety of configurations.

But, after that one carrier, the remaining prices jumped up substantially higher...and skipped over (didn't show) other airlines that have prices almost as low as China Eastern, but with different locations and shorter lengths of layovers...

American Airlines is one of those... Interestingly, I just got a FF email from AA the other day, wanting to clarify about some recent U.S. news reports (which I hadn't previously seen)... According to the email, because of some "commercial dispute," the flight listings for AA were being entirely pulled off one site (Orbitz I think) and were being pushed low on the available fares list with some other booking service.

I didn't dig into the details, because I don't need to be flying again soon. But the AA situation made me think of the negotiations lately between Fox and Disney and the big cable companies, where Fox in particular pulled their channels off certain cable systems because their contracts had expired and they hadn't been able to negotiate a new licensing/fees agreement... So a bunch of folks in different cities weren't able to watch the World Series on TV.

[jfchandler]

By the way, I hadn't seen this previously, regarding ITA... But it's on their web site...

On July 1, 2010, Google announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a Cambridge, Massachusetts flight information software company, for $700 million, subject to adjustments.

• Google’s acquisition of ITA Software will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online.
• The acquisition will benefit passengers, airlines and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares and by driving more potential customers to airlines’ and online travel agencies’ websites. Google won’t be setting airfare prices and has no plans to sell airline tickets to consumers.
• Because Google doesn’t currently compete against ITA Software, the deal will not change existing market shares. We are very excited about ITA Software’s QPX business, and we’re looking forward to working with current and future customers. Google will honor all existing agreements, and we’re also enthusiastic about adding new partners.

[Taggart]

Yes, I've been using ITAsoftware for the last few months now. This was where I found my cheap Air Canada ticket from YYZ to BKK which I bought last spring for the November flight. It's not perfect though. You still have to check the airline's website and sometimes there's a ticket sale that ITAsoftware doesn't pick up.

Also, most people know of kayak, but there's one part that I really like, where they have a world map, and you can type in your departure city and get fares for virtually anywhere in the world, all at one glance.

[ferritmaster]

Another tip I came across was to always clear your cookies before returning to the same site as multiple visits could trigger a price rise.

I tried it out on the Etihad site and it eventually came back £40 more expensive.

Not sure if this is always the case but I now clear my cookies out.

[THAIPHUKET]

Cookies traitors!!! Makes sense!! Will test it simply using different browsers

[Ricardo]

Now that really takes the biscuit !

[californiabeachboy]

For me the price is not the only issue, but the timing of the flights. I hate arriving at an airport late at night - it makes getting to your destination more difficult. I also don't like leaving very early in the morning as transport to the airport may be difficult.

I am in the process of booking my third flight from LA to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific. I use CP because they give me a free stopover in Hong Kong on the way over and the way back, and I like spending a couple of days in HK. In my experience the price of their flights does not change that much assuming you are 3 months to two weeks before the flight, but the availability of the "good" flights on certain days does.

I also agree that waiting until the last minute has more risks than benefits. The price may go down 5% if you are really lucky, but if you bet wrong, the price will go way way up.

[craigt3365]

Another tip I came across was to always clear your cookies before returning to the same site as multiple visits could trigger a price rise.

I tried it out on the Etihad site and it eventually came back £40 more expensive.

Not sure if this is always the case but I now clear my cookies out.

I forgot all about that. And you are sooooo right. It does make a difference. Smart buggers...

For me the price is not the only issue, but the timing of the flights. I hate arriving at an airport late at night - it makes getting to your destination more difficult. I also don't like leaving very early in the morning as transport to the airport may be difficult.

I am in the process of booking my third flight from LA to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific. I use CP because they give me a free stopover in Hong Kong on the way over and the way back, and I like spending a couple of days in HK. In my experience the price of their flights does not change that much assuming you are 3 months to two weeks before the flight, but the availability of the "good" flights on certain days does.

I also agree that waiting until the last minute has more risks than benefits. The price may go down 5% if you are really lucky, but if you bet wrong, the price will go way way up.

Can you share with me what you normally pay? I would love a stopover in HKK. I've done a few in Tokyo, but it always raises the price...and it ain't a cheap place to hangout. We just got back from Vegas. Left on December 7 and returned today (very early AM). I got a great deal for $1175. But looks like I will have to go back in May. Bummer! That long flight sucks.

[californiabeachboy]

Another tip I came across was to always clear your cookies before returning to the same site as multiple visits could trigger a price rise.

I tried it out on the Etihad site and it eventually came back £40 more expensive.

Not sure if this is always the case but I now clear my cookies out.

I forgot all about that. And you are sooooo right. It does make a difference. Smart buggers...

For me the price is not the only issue, but the timing of the flights. I hate arriving at an airport late at night - it makes getting to your destination more difficult. I also don't like leaving very early in the morning as transport to the airport may be difficult.

I am in the process of booking my third flight from LA to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific. I use CP because they give me a free stopover in Hong Kong on the way over and the way back, and I like spending a couple of days in HK. In my experience the price of their flights does not change that much assuming you are 3 months to two weeks before the flight, but the availability of the "good" flights on certain days does.

I also agree that waiting until the last minute has more risks than benefits. The price may go down 5% if you are really lucky, but if you bet wrong, the price will go way way up.

Can you share with me what you normally pay? I would love a stopover in HKK. I've done a few in Tokyo, but it always raises the price...and it ain't a cheap place to hangout. We just got back from Vegas. Left on December 7 and returned today (very early AM). I got a great deal for $1175. But looks like I will have to go back in May. Bummer! That long flight sucks.

I am in the process of booking a flight to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific for March from San Diego. I am stopping over in HK for two days on the way over and two days on the way back. The total cost is $1175 USD, but that includes the San Diego to LA leg, which is usually around $150 to $200 (so annoying), so the LA to HK to Bkk to HK TO LA portion is around $1000 (the ticket doesn't break it out). The nice thing is that on CP it only costs $100 or $150 to change or cancel the ticket.

I love HK - it is one of my favorite cities in the world. Plus I really like the HK and Bkk combo - you get the formal efficiency of HK and the smiling chaos of Bkk in one trip. I have a recommendation on a mid-priced HK hotel that is good for a short trip if you need one. I have been to Tokyo, and HK is expensive, but not that expensive. Good luck.

[craigt3365]

Another tip I came across was to always clear your cookies before returning to the same site as multiple visits could trigger a price rise.

I tried it out on the Etihad site and it eventually came back £40 more expensive.

Not sure if this is always the case but I now clear my cookies out.

I forgot all about that. And you are sooooo right. It does make a difference. Smart buggers...

For me the price is not the only issue, but the timing of the flights. I hate arriving at an airport late at night - it makes getting to your destination more difficult. I also don't like leaving very early in the morning as transport to the airport may be difficult.

I am in the process of booking my third flight from LA to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific. I use CP because they give me a free stopover in Hong Kong on the way over and the way back, and I like spending a couple of days in HK. In my experience the price of their flights does not change that much assuming you are 3 months to two weeks before the flight, but the availability of the "good" flights on certain days does.

I also agree that waiting until the last minute has more risks than benefits. The price may go down 5% if you are really lucky, but if you bet wrong, the price will go way way up.

Can you share with me what you normally pay? I would love a stopover in HKK. I've done a few in Tokyo, but it always raises the price...and it ain't a cheap place to hangout. We just got back from Vegas. Left on December 7 and returned today (very early AM). I got a great deal for $1175. But looks like I will have to go back in May. Bummer! That long flight sucks.

I am in the process of booking a flight to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific for March from San Diego. I am stopping over in HK for two days on the way over and two days on the way back. The total cost is $1175 USD, but that includes the San Diego to LA leg, which is usually around $150 to $200 (so annoying), so the LA to HK to Bkk to HK TO LA portion is around $1000 (the ticket doesn't break it out). The nice thing is that on CP it only costs $100 or $150 to change or cancel the ticket.

I love HK - it is one of my favorite cities in the world. Plus I really like the HK and Bkk combo - you get the formal efficiency of HK and the smiling chaos of Bkk in one trip. I have a recommendation on a mid-priced HK hotel that is good for a short trip if you need one. I have been to Tokyo, and HK is expensive, but not that expensive. Good luck.

Wow! That's a great price! I haven't been to HKK in about 5 years...so about time for a trip! If you can PM me the name of your HK hotel, I would sure appreciate it.

We got back a few days ago and it's a long, dam_n, boring trip. Stopping in HK for a few days would ease the pain!

Thanks so much for your info!

[jfchandler]

Lots of folks here have expressed the same conventional wisdom opinion that you recite below... mostly without any factual evidence to support it...

Few have done what I did, which was to actually track the purchase prices available for a trip both ahead of time and then right up to the departure date for that exact same trip...and compare the prices available during the entire period.

As I reported in the OP....for my travel to L.A., waiting until the week before the Christmas travel date would have been much less expensive than a ticket purchased months earlier...

I never said the same situation would apply in every case... But it certainly did in the example that I was testing... And that's not just an opinion... That's the facts as I documented earlier in the thread.

I'd be more willing to view the other side of the argument if I saw the early purchase crowd coming forward with best price examples of what they paid months before, and then what they could/would have paid just before their departure... Not seeing much of that here.

I also agree that waiting until the last minute has more risks than benefits. The price may go down 5% if you are really lucky, but if you bet wrong, the price will go way way up.

[phuketrichard]

I am hoiping someone might be able to help.

I am travelling back tothe states this coming July so my daughter can attend her senior year of high school there. So i will be there about 14 months.

does ANYONE know if any airline ( would love to do the Cathy flight from phuket) will issue a one year ticket and i can extend it anohter 2 months??

Thanks,

[keestha]

I am getting a bit dizzy reading all of this....A customer of mine also said he saw flight prices to Thailand going up when trying to book briefly before departure.

Maybe it could be considered to pin this thread, people are bound to remain interested in this subject.