Planning a vacation in August, should I buy the Airfare now, or wait?

[Slacker]

Heading out west this summer for our first vacation in over ten years, last time we went to Bar Harbor, Me. back in october 1995, it was a fantastic trip, beautiful country up there.

Anyway, in August of this year I am taking my wife and my son to Oregon, we will fly nonstop from Dulles to Portland and rent a car to drive about 300 miles east to the Hells canyon area.

I have never flown before, just never had the need, but I dont have any fear of it, even so, it seemed like it would be a good idea for my first flight to do a nonstop so I dont have to deal with multiple take offs and landings, so thats why we decided to do nonstop.

We live about ten miles from Dulles, twenty five miles from Reagan and sixty five from BWI.

The fares I have found range from....

$350.00 per person from BWI to PDX(portland) with one stop

to

$460.00 per person from IAD(Dulles) to PDX nonstop

As I said, we decided to leave from Dulles because it is so close, and the nonstop for the first time flyer (me) so that is the best fare that suits our needs right now, the question is, should I buy the NON-REFUNDABLE tickets now, or just wait? will the prices go up this summer?

Like I said, I have never flown before, so of course I have never bought airline tickets either, any suggestions would be appreciated 🙂

 

[SLCentral]

Usually, the closer to the date of flight, the more expensive the tickets are. If you're sure you're going, just get them now.

 

[Slacker]

Originally posted by: SLCentral
Usually, the closer to the date of flight, the more expensive the tickets are. If you're sure you're going, just get them now.

Thats what I thought, the only thing I dont like is that the tickets are non-refundable, what if something comes up and we cant go, even if we have to change the dates it would cost $100/ticket to make the changes.

 

[simms]

Not always. Use Orbitz and the price checker. It will email you if there's a cheaper flight to be found within the dates you are looking for.

 

[Shelly21]

seems like there's an optimal time to buy it, like 2 months in advance. I tried to find tickets to Japan in July and they're overpriced right now.

 

[iamwiz82]

Usually the cheapest fares have a 30 day advanced purchase.

Usually even with non-refunable tickets the airlines will give you a voucher for future use with a value of the original flight minus $50 or something like that, it really depends on the airline.

Southwest will probably be cheapest, but they only are booking through August 3 right now. Check them out in a couple of days to see.

 

[BlueFlamme]

Checkout Kayak, they search multiple airports nearby and you can signup to have them send you a low price alert.

Know that unless you find a carrier with a hub in DFW or PDX you're gonna pay more for non-stop. I just threw out some random dates on that website for 11-25 august for 2 and got $350 per person for non-stop with AA. With one stop you could get a ticket for $300.

What I would suggest is to find the current rate and setup a reminder for a rate reminder so you'll see if the prices drop during the middle of the week. Plus check out flexible dates to see if you can save by flying on Tue/Wed.

 

[Slacker]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Usually the cheapest fares have a 30 day advanced purchase.

Usually even with non-refunable tickets the airlines will give you a voucher for future use with a value of the original flight minus $50 or something like that, it really depends on the airline.

Southwest will probably be cheapest, but they only are booking through August 3 right now. Check them out in a couple of days to see.

With United it was $100.00 to change the flight, I think I will check prices for a few days and see what happens, thanks for the info about Southwest.

Originally posted by: simms
Not always. Use Orbitz and the price checker. It will email you if there's a cheaper flight to be found within the dates you are looking for.

I dont think I checked orbitz, thanks!

Originally posted by: BlueFlamme
Checkout Kayak, they search multiple airports nearby and you can signup to have them send you a low price alert.

Know that unless you find a carrier with a hub in DFW or PDX you're gonna pay more for non-stop. I just threw out some random dates on that website for 11-25 august for 2 and got $350 per person for non-stop with AA. With one stop you could get a ticket for $300.

What I would suggest is to find the current rate and setup a reminder for a rate reminder so you'll see if the prices drop during the middle of the week. Plus check out flexible dates to see if you can save by flying on Tue/Wed.

I have been using kayak to check different flight plans, I think I saw you recommend it in another thread 🙂, I dont mind paying a little more for the nonstop flight and I dont want to deal with the hassle flying out of Baltimore or D.C. so my trip plan is pretty well set, with Dulles and Portland being the two airports I will be using.

I will look at the flexible dates too, thanks for that tip!

 

[BlueFlamme]

Bah, you typed DFW in the first prior to editing!

Just for future reference, JetBlue flies out of IAD non-stop to OAK, LGB (long beach/LA), and SAN (diego) and several other locations

Southwest flies directly from BWI to LAX, SAN, and LAS (vegas) and several other locations.

Those two are not covered under any of the main search engines (kayak, travelocity, orbitz, expedia) and the ticket prices are always for one way.

 

[Slacker]

It looks like $460.00 per person for nonstop Dulles to Portland is the best I am going to find, still not sure if I should buy now or wait until 30~45 days before departure to buy though.