What Day Should I Shop for Airfares?

Rick Seaney of Farecompare just ran this article in his weekly newsletter. I'm going to copy it here for you as it supports information I gave on this blog about 8 months ago. You will find Farecompare as one of our links on the right hand side of this blog. I use their pricing program everyday to check fares in my marketplace and to hunt for the elusive mistake fare.

Thanks Rick for reinforcing my belief to buy early in the week and not on weekends.

And I quote:

"There is no perfect time to start shopping for an airfare - mainly because airline reservation systems monitor dozens of instantly changing variables before deciding the price to quote you - in theory every time you ask for a quote!

Shopping Tuesday at midnight to get cheaper airline tickets is a myth which I have covered in the past.
After watching trillions of airfares fly by over the years, there are patterns we have seen which I want to share with you today about the best time to start shopping which is:

Monday at 3:00pm EDT - continuing on thru Wednesday

Why?

Airlines typically file airfare sales Monday morning in the 10:00am or 12:30pm EDT airfare distribution. Over the next 3 airfare distribution cycles, Monday at 8:00pm and Tuesday at 10:00am and 12:30pm, other airlines typically start matching the sale prices. These sales tend to expire late on Friday, but even worse, airlines typically file airfare hikes (22 attempts this year) late Thursday, so shopping over the weekend is not the best idea.

These are just general rules of thumb - but, the best piece of advice I can give right now is, not to procrastinate on your holiday airfare purchases.

Worried you'll forget to shop on Monday? Sign up for Email Alerts - the perfect reminder (and if you haven't looked at your alerts lately, it may be time to change them for your next trip)

And remember, you can always find good deals on our Deals Page - we update it constantly.