To book or not to book.......

I've got the room reserved but have held off from making plane reservations hoping prices would drop for a mid-August trip. I'm flying the cheapest days, midweek to midweek and I cant get anything nonstop from Atlanta for less than $500. While that may be a deal from other cities....its certainly not from Atlanta. I've been checking everyday and the prices haven't budged one bit.

I'm worried now that time keeps getting closer that prices will actually go UP rather than down. Most online sites, including Delta, have price guarantees but there is so much fine print good luck getting an adjustment. They just want you to book.

Should I suck it up and book now or wait for a special?

I would say book and keep track of your flights and see if a sale pops up before then.

I'm doing off days for my trip out of Baltimore (non-stop Airtran) and looked for the same thing. Hoping the price would drop or a good sale would pop up and it didn't. We jumped on prices when it was about $400RT pp and since then the price has steadily gone up, even on the good midweek days.

In the past I've booked and if a good sale popped up; I called customer service and they charged the change fee but I still got a credit for the difference that was still there. It doesn't look like too many airlines are running those great sales anymore sadly. Just my opinion.

Hope it works out.

I am going down from NY and booked my flight in January. The prices have gone up steadily since Jan! I got $453pp

Well, I'm flying out of Atlanta, and just purchased my tickets June 5 for July 4 departure....flying out on Monday and returning on Thursday 10 days later I paid $418 including taxes and fees. I usually start looking 5 or 6 weeks before I actually want to fly in the summer because my dates then are very flexible. For travel at other times of the year, I start looking much farther in advance. 3 or 4 months usually. On Delta my concern is that the seats will be sold out on certain flights. I don't blame you being worried about prices going up at this point; that's definitely happened to me before, and I'm a teacher who is as flexible as can be with dates during the summer. Good luck!

Lynntt...are you flying nonstop on Delta? That is what I'm trying to get. I can save a few bucks on Airtran but when you add in the baggage fees, seat charge, its NOT nonstop, and it gets in a few hours later....it really isnt worht it.

Yes I am flying nonstop - and when I booked I could have saved $60 had I been willing to take the early flight back on the 14th, but I like having that last morning to sleep in and enjoy a good breakfast, hang out looking for dolphins, have an extra cup of coffee, have a leisurely drive to the airport...you get the idea. LOL! The 3:00 flight is great for that.

Airfare dropped $30 today. First movement I've seen in two weeks. Lets hope it makes a significant drop. Another $20 and I'm all over it...lol.

Twist - hold out if you can until 30 days out.

I always find the sweet spot is 5weeks to 21days prior. Much earlier than that and the high-discount seats aren't setup yet. When prices are staying above the historical price, I've also gambled and bought with less than 10days to go - can get a last-minute discount. But that's really playing chicken with them - and can end up higher. It's only worked about a third of the time for me. OK if by yourself, but not for a family.

I use a site like SideStep because it tracks the daily price on a chart. You can see how the price has fluctuated in the past to better guage if is likely to come down, and when.
Plus you know what the lowest price is, and how much more you would be paying. Even though tracking on those sites, I go to the airline site to buy - to avoid any booking fees.
You'll definitely be paying more for a direct flight, though - and on Delta instead of a discount carrier. It's what is important to you - convenience and travel time versus price.

One tip. If you're buying tickets for a family, buy the tickets one at a time.
If there are only a couple of discount seats available, you don't get them if you are searching for more than that number of tickets.
Reason is they sell you tickets that all have the same price - and if you need say 5, but there are only 3 discount seats left - they sell you other higher-priced ones.
By buying them one at a time, you would get the 3 discount seats, then 1 a little higher, and so on. You can still choose your seats together, once all done.

I've heard that, too, from Clarity about purchasing tickets separately. I'm afraid that if I do that and can't get all our 4 tickets on the same flight, we'd be in trouble :(

You could do a first search for the total number to make sure enough seats are available on a certain flight. Then do a search for 1 ticket. If there's a significant difference - buy them one at a time - since you know there's enough seats for all of you.

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Gail

Sometimes this can help predict:

Check a few flights in your time frame... go through the booking process (do NOT pay) until you get to the seat selection option..look and see how many seats are left open. Flights with a lot of open seats are more likely to go down as you near departure, and flights with few open seats are more likely to go up.
Not foolproof as airlines sometimes hide seats, but about the best indicator you will find.

You may also want to create an account with Fat Wallet, a cash back forum. I recently priced airfare through the major airlines, Kayak, Expedia, Orbits, etc and with the cash back deal at Fat Wallet, I would have saved about $35 booking thru Expedia. The cash back is slow but money saved is money saved.

Cheapest prices are typically released on Wednesdays and according to several sites, mid week travel is not cheapest. Saturday travel is. My guess is business travel is more prevalent during the week.

I've been watching the seats and this has given me a little peace of mind as there are plenty left. The flights just dropped another$10. If they go down a little more I'm gonna go for it as I'm close to what I've been hoping to get. I'm not much of a gambler....lol.

I always fly delta non-stop out of Atlanta. ( I live just west of ATL). I have been watching and waiting for the best price also for my August trip. The best I have found was $389 so far. The prices are the best on early tuesday mornings.

Jaherring......Where ya' from just west of ATL. I'm in the Peachtree City area. The rates I'm watching is flying out Tues 9th to Wed the 17th. Best I'm getting is $406 plus taxes, etc. making it $475. Still a good ways off from what I'm used to paying. We'll see if my gamble pays off...lol.

That wack out of ATL! I am flying Delta from LAX in a few months and paid approximately $550 with a layover in ATL. $50 bucks more!

I booked through Expedia and they are sending me a $50 gas card

It's toying with me. It just dropped another $10 per ticket. It's not about $50 cheaper per ticket than when I started this thread. Hmmmm......getting tempting. Its now $396 or $464 with taxes etc.

WOOOHOOO!!!! My gamble paid off!!!! My airfare dropped now to about $100 per person cheaper than a few weeks ago when I started looking.

I just booked for $346 plus taxes.....AND......I get free baggage and free preferred seating....and hopefully an upgrade.

WOW...this is killing me! Within two hours of making my reservations at the reduced rate the prices PLUMMETTED to $230!!!! Thats right $230!!!! Thats cheaper airfare than any trip I've ever made to Jamaica.

Now we are trying to cancel our reservation and make them again at the reduced rate. When this happens my savings will be over $500 total from when I originally started searching for airfare.

We have just cancelled and rebooked without penalty!!!
WOOOOHOOOO!!!!! $230 ROUNDTRIP!!!!!!!!

Mr. Twister I have just gotten inspired! My trip not until November so I will probably get my ticket in September. Now you got me price watching.

That is great that you got such a fantastic rate! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delta

My trip not until November so I will probably get my ticket in September. Now you got me price watching.

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Delta, you'll do better to wait until October, when the 30-day price reductions kick in, not September. But DO sign up for something like SideStep where they track prices and even send you emails of prices - that way in Oct you'll know when prices are at the low point.

Thanks for the tip Buckeye!!!!!! This is gonna be interesting as I'm usually the 90 days out ticket purchase kinda girl LOL.

I think you should pull the triger and go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!Aug 6th herw I come:)

Awesome silver fox! Join the roll call I started! We'll be there a few days after you arrive!

http://negril.com/forum/showthread.p...gust-Roll-Call

Congrats!!!! I love good deals too.:)

That is a crazy price!!!

Greetings

Congrats on hitting the ticket lottery. I did the same last year at exactly 38 days and was curious number of days between purchase and take off for you this year? You know always hopeing to crack secret airline pricing code.

Since we fly same airlines to and from same cities I was even more impressed with the part about no cancelation charge/fee. When I inquired about changing tickets they said would cost $150 per ticket to change. Would you mind elaborating on how you managed to do that? Thanks

Have a great trip!

Hmmm, I wonder how this affects other who have an option of flying through Atlanta .....

Mr. X.
We simply called the airline and cancelled without a charge any hassle at all. My wife flies every week so I'm not sure if her status had something to do with it. When I said we needed to change flights she knew right away we wouldnt be charged.....whereas I was expecting the $150 per ticket. I'm quite grateful we were not.

FYI...thie tickets prices went up and down a few times since I booked. They havent gone quite as low as when I booked but almost. The prices have been low for the last few days and today they went back up. In looking at the seat availability....the flight is almost full so I expect the prices to stay on the higher end.