When is the best time to buy airline tickets?
When is the best time to buy airline tickets? It's a complex question, but we'll try to answer it.
The best time to buy an airline ticket depends on many factors: the airline, destination, season, and even specific dates.
Flights within Russia
We compared the prices of several Russian carriers, including Aeroflot, Transaero, Utair, and Rossiya.
The cheapest airline tickets for most destinations were found 2 weeks or more before departure.
Tickets to popular resorts during the peak tourist season (May to October), such as Anapa, Sochi, Mineralnye Vody, should be purchased much earlier, 6 - 10 weeks before departure.
We discussed an example of airline ticket price dynamics to Sochi in more detail in the article about early booking of airline tickets.
It's worth buying plane tickets 1.5 - 2 months in advance for trips during school holidays or long weekends (New Year holidays). The lowest prices for flights during May holidays should be sought in February - early March.
Flights from Russia to Europe
We studied the prices of the most popular European carriers, such as Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, LOT, Finn Air, Alitalia, airBaltic, and others. Most airlines offer minimum prices when purchasing an airline ticket 7 - 12 weeks before departure. Although for some destinations, quite budget-friendly offers can be found 2-3 weeks before departure.
For airlines such as Air Berlin, LOT, Estonian Air, Iberia, Veulung, tickets should be purchased even earlier; minimum fares were found 9-14 weeks before departure.
The same price trend is observed for flights within Europe.
Should you buy airline tickets half a year or a year in advance?
This depends on the airline and destination. Most low-cost carriers, such as airBaltic, Air Berlin, UIA, offer low prices when booking 5-6 months or more in advance.
Unfortunately, the difference is not 40-50%; usually, the price is about 15% cheaper compared to prices 4-9 weeks before departure.
It's worth noting that with very early booking, there's a risk of missing a sale. For example, airline tickets to New York, if purchased half a year before departure, will cost approximately 20,000 rubles round trip, but if you plan a winter trip, it's worth waiting a bit. During the low season, airlines often have sales and sell the same tickets for 15,000-17,000 rubles.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to predict in advance whether there will be a sale or not; we can only speculate. But by analyzing data about your flight route, some conclusions can be drawn. If your destination is a popular resort and only 1-2 airlines fly this route (direct flights or with a short layover), then you might not want to wait for a sale.
It's worth buying airline tickets half a year or more in advance only for popular resorts during peak season, as well as during holidays.
For example, now is the optimal time to buy airline tickets for the New Year holidays, especially if you want to visit one of the European capitals during Christmas. Keep in mind that even now such tickets will not be cheap, and closer to departure, their cost may increase significantly.
From July to September, it's the ideal time to purchase tickets on Kupi.com to popular ski resorts.
