Reader Question Of The Week: Best Time To Buy Tickets?

This week's Reader Question of the Week comes from Avery from DC! Thank you for asking your question, and I hope this helps!


When is the best time to buy airplane tickets? And what is the best search engine to use? Thank you!

The best time to buy airplane tickets is in advance. The further out it is, the better the price you are most likely going to get, and the better seat on the plane you are going to get. However, sometimes fares change and go down, so you need to be aware of that. Check out farecast.com (now BING travel). This site shows whether your plane ticket is likely to go up or down, and whether you should buy it now or wait. It is pretty cool, and gives a fairly accurate description if you should buy now or wait for prices to decrease. As for days, airlines usually have premium pricing on the weekends, so I always wait until midweek (Tuesday - Thursday) to purchase my tickets. Make sure your dates are flexible too, as changing the dates you fly can be helpful in finding good fares too.

In terms of the best search engine, the most popular is probably orbitz.com and expedia.com. Kayak.com is a good site since it accumulates all the ticketing sites out there in one place. Priceline.com is good since you can name your own price, but the downside is you do not know which airline you will be flying. Some airlines you can only book through their own website, such as American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, so you should check each of the carriers own website as well.

I hope this helps, Avery, and please be sure to check in next week for our Reader QOTW! Thanks!