How far in advance did you or should you buy your airline tickets?

[Alyssa]

FI and I are thinking about our airline tickets to Hawaii (as well as our guests) and since we don't have a TA () we need to give recommendations and coordinate to our guests.

 

Our wedding will be next September - does anyone have advice for me regarding when would be the best time (price-wise) to buy tickets for the trip?

 

Thanks!

[Jackie]

I'm probably not much help, but our wedding is in May and we purchased our tickets last month.

 

The only advice I can give is keep looking at flights and as soon as you see a great deal jump on it.

[michelle08]

exactly the same with us...our wedding is in May and we booked ours last month because AA was having a roundtrip non stop flight for $300 each out the door! I thought this was a great deal and the best I would probably find for non-stop so I just did it!

 

Just keep checking and when you find a good deal, book it!

[BeachBride82]

I'm not much help as well. I bought my tickets this past week for our Hawaii honeymoon in June/July. My suggestion is to go through with purchasing your tickets up until the point that you have to put in your payment. AirCanada, the company that we are flying with, had an updated image of how many seats were left on the planes (arrival and departure). I was surprised to see that more than 1/2 of the seats on each flight were booked so far in advance!

 

Perhaps you could contact the airline, let them know the number of guests that you are expecting to travel with and see if they have a recommended timeline?

[foxytv]

We are getting married in April and while many guests have booked their flights, we haven't yet.

 

We tried to use our NWA miles, but were told that timeframe is already blacked out. One of my BM's used her miles to book her flight on US Airways back in May and had no problem.

 

Now, we are monitoring airfares b/c they had skyrocketed for Punta Cana (we'll be flying out of ATL b/c we want a direct flight on NWA) but finally they are starting to level off and come back down for our dates.

 

Basically, I would set up alerts so different sites will email you when the price drops, and jump on it when it looks good. I monitor all the departure cities for our confirmed guests and email them as soon as good fares pop up -- because oftentimes they won't last long!

[foxytv]

Sorry -- double post. This site is acting wacky again today!

[PaulaV]

If you are not confined by certain airlines, you can certainly wait until closer to time. I am using miles so I need to do it soon! We are 3 months away.

 

My friend has been watching prices on Continental for Feb the last few months and they fluctuate quite a bit. She is going to buy hers the next time it takes a dip.

[NYJen]

I think Expedia has a feature where they'll let you know when the price changes on certain trips. Check it out.

[A10CalGal]

We bought our tickets way to early! Like 7 months in advance. I did this because I looked at the online pics of the seats that were taken & freaked out, because they were almost all booked! How could I plan a wedding & ask guests to show up when I didn't even know if we would be able to get a ticket? Well, I figured out later that we should have waited - the closer it got the better the deals became. I think TA's buy up blocks of seats for prime times way early, which makes it look like all the seats are sold.

[Jenn]

We bought our tickets in July for January. I can't say what your fares will do, but I can tell you that ours have gone up dramatically since we bought. If you've been watching the fares, as soon as it goes down, jump on it. Our guests who have not bought yet are sort of screwed at the moment. The tickets are all up about $200+. Also, I'm not sure if it works for Hawaii, but have you looked at Farecast | Airfare Predictions, Find Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets ? They tell you whether or not a fare is high or low.