How soon do you buy airline tickets?

[Jamerican71]

I almost always fly Southwest so I purchase as soon as they open -- about 6 months before my trip. I then watch it daily for price drops.

I use this site for finding tickets: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ You can't book from the site but it gives you lots of information about flights. There are some airlines like Spirit and Southwest that will not show up.

[Mike_D]

I use this site for finding tickets: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ You can't book from the site but it gives you lots of information about flights. There are some airlines like Spirit and Southwest that will not show up.

Matrix is a must for analyzing the prices from multiple airlines. Matrix was recently purchased by Google and has become Google Flights. Same information, but with a much slicker interface:

https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0