Scrudgy

Hello there

I am planning a family holiday from the UK to San Francisco for the first two weeks of July in 2015.

Booking for most common airlines is available now for a range of £794 - £1100 per person in economy inclusive of all taxes.

My question is this:- Is there an optimum time to book for best prices (with money, as I don't have enough points).

Book now or wait 6 months etc?
Will the prices dramatically reduce from the £794 typically.

I searched the web to find various different opinions - some saying 54 days before seemed to be the optimum, but I don't want to risk leaving it that late when booking for 4 people. Anyway, I think I would value the opinions of the community here more

Appreciate your views.

Dieuwer

No idea ex-UK, but from Boston to Europe during summer I tend to get the best economy airfare 6 months in advance. This is based on 10 years of experience and tracking airfare during that time.

jbeckett

For your situation, I would monitor the fares on a regular basis (every day or couple of days), and consider the prices that I see today as an average or typical price. Then if I see a good price, I buy it. If nothing good has shown up by February, I would buy it then at the typical price.

Keep your eyes open for fare sales or other exceptional fares. Be willing to consider flying into alternate cites, for example SJC, MRY, or even LAX as your destination.

MSPeconomist

IMO it depends somewhat on whether you would by buying the tickets directly from the airline or from an online travel agent. The latter can be a real pain when airline schedules change, which is very likely for tickets purchased far in advance. You can get stuck with inconvenient schedules, additional very long or very short and risky connections, undesirable aircraft, etc. If you care about these details rather than just getting from the UK (where?) to SFO as cheaply as possible, I'd advise against buying tickets so far in advance.

Would these tickets be totally unchangeable and nonrefundable? For cheap TATL round trips exEurope, this is typically the case. Have you thought about travel insurance and investigated its cost?

Scrudgy

Many thanks for the replies, the starting point is ABZ, but other easily reached starting points would be anywhere in the UK, preferably Scotland first, then north England and then further south. Belfast and Dublin are also easily reached.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

I would certainly check prices out of BFS and DUB. And EI has a DUB-SFO nonstop now.

MSPeconomist

If it's convenient for you, there are TATL flights to the USA from MAN and BHX.

LondonElite

Between now and the end of the year there is very likely to be another BA sale.