Nanashi

So I’m not that experienced in tracking flight prices but I wanted to know how common it is for there to be major short term volatility in flight pricing, and if prices ever go back down?

My case:
I was looking at buying tickets to fly from Japan to the USA in December. When I checked a few weeks back the average price was ~150,000 JPY (roughly 1k usd) per seat for standard economy fastest route. About 2 weeks ago these raised to 180,000 jpy so I decided I should probably buy my tickets soon. I applied for a miles credit card so I could take advantage of the various bonuses and continued checking the flight prices every day while I waited for my card to arrive. Suddenly today the prices skyrocketed to over 300,000 jpy. Not only that, but all future flights for this route on delta for basic economy are now starting at this price, even flights months out from now.

I can understand a sudden surge if the remaining seats on my particular i were booked, but I don’t understand why flights in March are now starting at this price as well. I can’t decide if I should bite the bullet and pay these prices now, or if it’s worth waiting to see if the tickets go back down and instead visit my family some time in spring.

Any insight or advice on this would be very appreciated.

bosman

I have found, on DL in particular, that pricing looks much better if you delete cookies and start your search fresh. Many on the DL forum dismiss this as being totally false, but it's worked for me (admittedly many years ago).