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!