I think I heard something that Wednesday is the best day but not sure

And it seems like Airlines are already starting to raise prices, I have been Noticing Southwest Doesn't really offer the 29 or 34 dollar one way's anymore and I also read an article saying Southwest is going to be the Industry Leader in gradually raising ticket prices

There was something I read once that one airline will raise prices going into weekend and see if others will match it, if they don't the original airlines increase falls back after wkend is over. Otherwise, yes I'd agree with assessment about SW esp since their hedged contract on jet fuel is about done; we also lost I-fly on the east coast, ATA says it's going to focus more on charters and Ted Neelman, pres of Jet Blue wants to raise tkt prices 5-10$ rt to offset a disappointing quarter due to higher costs. Less LCC's, esp in certain markets usually mean higher prices.

There aren't really good days of the week to buy tickets, but there are good days of the week to fly (days where the pricing is lower)

good rule of thumb: most expensive days to fly are Thurs/Fri/Sun/Mon, least expensive days to fly are Tues/Wed/and sometimes Sat

because the fares are based both on availability and popularity, the airlines allot the fewest cheap seats on the popular days, and these get bought up right away. reverse is true for the less popular days.

--oh and also that theory about raising fares going into the weekend and then dropping them back down again isn't exactly accurate. it's really expensive and time consuming to update the entire pricing structure that often. most airlines just create a fare structure and then allot a certain amount of seats for each price quarterly. if they decide to do a sale last minute it takes a massive amount of work so they usually only do this about 6 times a year total. not sure if SWA is different (they probably are) but that is what most legacy airlines do, and i think a few LCCs do it to.--

--oh and also that theory about raising fares going into the weekend and then dropping them back down again isn't exactly accurate--Gotta disagree with you there Lora54.

While I'm no expert, I can tell you that in fact this happens quite often. CO did this many times, raising their prices by $5 or $10, and then dropping them back down on Monday when the other majors didn't match. And according to a 20/20 story a couple of years ago the airlines adjust or review fares several times per day. While the vast majority of fares stay the same for long stretches at a time, they are updated - though I'm not sure if it's the right term if they are only reviewed and don't change.

Another thing to keep in mind is that prices will appear to go up if a low fare bucket is sold out, and the the fare may look like it went up, even though that same bucket may still be available on a different day. In fact, noticed this just today as I was searching for fares for Memorial Day long weekend getaway (gotta fly to keep my status :eek: )

But I generally agree with you about when to fly to get the cheaper fare, as most of the deep discount fares exclude weekends, though at least for most of the airlines that I search the low cost fares are Mon-Thur.

EmailKid

I've been told by a few people (not seasoned travelers) that the best time to buy is betwen something like 1am and 2am on a tuesday morning. That's when they drop and re-evaluate or something like that. Sounds fishy to me, just an urban legend??

not trying to be combative, but i work for a major airline so maybe i can clear up some misunderstandings. what you are describing with the $5-10 increases will happen about a 6-12 times a year at most (depending on the state of the industry, which is improving)--it's a fare war. the 20/20 story about airlines reviewing and adjusting fares several times per day was describing how we review availability, not pricing per say. here's a very rough breakdown on how it works (you probably already know most of this):

aircraft A goes from SFO-PDX every Tuesday. it has 100 seats in the coach cabin.

then we break up the number of seats into fare classes (has nothing to do with where the seats are located on the aircraft). it'll go from Y class (most expensive) to V or Q class (least expensive, web specials, etc). the free seats are usually W class (FF reward seats). Other fare classes are present as well: L, T, etc, and these are fares that are what I would consider as more than I (personally) would be willing to pay, but not astronomical like the Y fares. ;)

then we go through the load factors and forcasts for the flight and figure out how full the plane usually is on Tuesdays. let's say that aircraft A typically fills less than 50% of the seats. If that's the case, we will allot more seats than usual to be sold in the V, Q, and W fare classes. If this still doesn't sell more seats, let's say it's 3 weeks before the flight and it's still selling poorly, we'll go back through and 'open up' even more V, Q, and W seats. If a flight is selling fast, we do the opposite. We do this every day, for every flight (right up to the day before departure), all day long, but the department that does this is only open during business hours and I am not sure when it becomes active in the system or on the web.

*pause for breath*

So that's what the 20/20 story was explaining. changing the seat allotment for a particular fare is easy so we do it all the time. (but since there's no way to predict when the airlines are going to do that, sticking with the low travel days is the easiest way to get the best price or to get FF award seats) changing the fares themselves is much more complicated and involves coding and the ever-mysterious and scary marketing people. but you are correct Emailkid in that most airlines do announce fare sales (and hikes) on Thursdays. and i am sorry i'm so long-winded, i'll be quiet now ;)

(edited due to technical difficulties)

Ah. yield management. Once in the Philippines I saw a guy arguing with a ticket agent at the airport. It was he and his wife wanting to go and they had one seat at the low fare. "You have only one seat left?" "No, we have more seats, but only one seat at that fare." The idea that they'd have enough seats but deliberately limit the ones they'd sell at a certain fare was alien to someone in a country where not long ago there were only Y, C and F fares on a national carrier. The agent struggled with the explanation, too.

i subscribe to travelocity farewatch. i get emails when prices go up and down. this way i can, over time, have an idea of high and possibly low prices. knowing this in advance is helpful when a "too good to be true" fare happens. i can jump at the price knowing its good.

grb

added- yes i have found that tickets usually are cheaper, maybe its just me, on tuesdays-wednesdays. i try to buy them then.

Some time ago I read that there was a certain time when airlines cleared the reservations that had been put on hold during the weekend but not purchased, so low-fare seats opened up at that time. I'm thinking it was midnight (the end of) Tuesday, even though it's later than billed. I know that airlines have changed policies about putting reservations on hold, so I don't know if this applies at all.

i subscribe to travelocity farewatch.
added- yes i have found that tickets usually are cheaper, maybe its just me, on tuesdays-wednesdays. i try to buy them then.

The kayak.com fare tracker is also good because it has jetblue.

I've heard that some of the legacy carriers loads/adjusts fares on Tues or Wed, so sometimes it's possible to get seats in a fare class that was previously sold out (or that the fares you were seeing have disappeared). Not sure if this is true, others may have more knowledge/experience.

As for me, an impoverished grad student, I tend to buy tickets after my credit card has moved to the next billing cycle, or on pay day ;)

not trying to be combative, but i work for a major airline so maybe i can clear up some misunderstandings. what you are describing with the $5-10 increases will happen about a 6-12 times a year at most (depending on the state of the industry, which is improving)--it's a fare war. the 20/20 story about airlines reviewing and adjusting fares several times per day was describing how we review availability, not pricing per say. here's a very rough breakdown on how it works (you probably already know most of this):

aircraft A goes from SFO-PDX every Tuesday. it has 100 seats in the coach cabin.

then we break up the number of seats into fare classes (has nothing to do with where the seats are located on the aircraft). it'll go from Y class (most expensive) to V or Q class (least expensive, web specials, etc). the free seats are usually W class (FF reward seats). Other fare classes are present as well: L, T, etc, and these are fares that are what I would consider as more than I (personally) would be willing to pay, but not astronomical like the Y fares. ;)

then we go through the load factors and forcasts for the flight and figure out how full the plane usually is on Tuesdays. let's say that aircraft A typically fills less than 50% of the seats. If that's the case, we will allot more seats than usual to be sold in the V, Q, and W fare classes. If this still doesn't sell more seats, let's say it's 3 weeks before the flight and it's still selling poorly, we'll go back through and 'open up' even more V, Q, and W seats. If a flight is selling fast, we do the opposite. We do this every day, for every flight (right up to the day before departure), all day long, but the department that does this is only open during business hours and I am not sure when it becomes active in the system or on the web.

*pause for breath*

So that's what the 20/20 story was explaining. changing the seat allotment for a particular fare is easy so we do it all the time. (but since there's no way to predict when the airlines are going to do that, sticking with the low travel days is the easiest way to get the best price or to get FF award seats) changing the fares themselves is much more complicated and involves coding and the ever-mysterious and scary marketing people. but you are correct Emailkid in that most airlines do announce fare sales (and hikes) on Thursdays. and i am sorry i'm so long-winded, i'll be quiet now ;)

(edited due to technical difficulties)


i think this makes the most sense