Managing the Flight Carousel

We found out we were going to be spending a semester in Italy almost a year in advance (10 months to be exact). Though this gave us plenty of time to search for ticket options, it also gave us plenty of time to second guess our ticket options. For a while there, it was like watching the stock market. How low can we wait before we buy? How long before prices shoot up?

We played the game, and though we did come out somewhat ahead, we definitely could have done better.

First, it does matter where you buy them. I've never understood what the point is for sites like Expedia and Travelocity to advertise that they have the lowest deals. They never do, and in our case, they were consistently $200-$300 more than other sites. The best prices we found using CheapTickets, CheapoAir, and SkyScanner.

Second, it takes a lot of research, and we did our fair share, if not more. Where to fly in, when to fly in, what day (and time) to book tickets. What we found ranged from the common (fly out on a Wednesday) and not-so-common (buy tickets on Tuesday). Kayak recently conducted a study of thousands of flight purchases and found an interesting trend: the earlier the better rule isn't exactly true anymore. According to their research, buying within 50 days before your flight leaves is the best time to buy.

Our personal experience has been a little bit different. The cheapest flights we found were about 1 year early. Here's a quick run-down of the average round-trip ticket costs to Venice based on the time-frame that we looked at tickets:

Nov - Dec 2013: ~$750
Jan - Mar 2014: ~$900
Apr - May 2014: ~$1200
Jun - Aug 2014: ~$1100

After almost a year of checking flight costs, we learned one important lesson: If you find tickets to Europe under $900, book 'em. I'll also add that the travel tips floating on the Internet didn't really make a difference. For example, buying on a Tuesday was the same price as buying on a Thursday, and flying out on a Monday was the same price as flying out on a Wednesday. One thing we would highly recommend, though, is if you're buying online, make sure you clear your cache and your cookies on your browser before you buy. The airfare sites do track your searches, and prices do change based on your search history.