When To Find The Best Airfare Deals
I disagree with most travel analysts on how to find the best airfare deals. Here’s my advice on shopping for the best bargain.
First, realize that the rules have changed.
Since the oil price crisis hit the airlines this Spring, the whole scenario on pricing and deals changed. Traditional pricing and timing models went out the airplane window together with good deals, frequent flier seats and meals.
Second, be careful of the advice you read.
For example, the travel search website, Farecast, acquired in April by Microsoft, purports to predict when the best time is to buy airline tickets. Farecast, giving old and no longer appropriate recommendations, recently advised among other things:
“The lowest price tends to hit between eight and two weeks before departure. Buying tickets farther in advance usually doesn’t save money.”
Beat of Hawaii’s Tips
Farecast is completely and utterly wrong. There is no longer a way to generalize and predict when the truly great deals will become available or what time period they will be for. Deal time in today’s market has eluded even their sophisticated algorithms.
Certainly you can surmise that you won’t be getting the best deals from June 15 to August 15, and over Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. But beyond that, if you want to get great deals, the airfare war deals, you will have to monitor for them almost constantly. They come and go mostly within the span of a single day or less.
Recent case in point.
We reported amazing deals between the East and West coasts and Hawaii just four weeks ago. They lasted 12 hours or less, with the most desirable dates going within one to two hours. These deals, however, covered travel over a nine month period, from mid-August 2008 all the way until mid-April 2009, and were under $300 RT (all-inclusive). That completely contradicts the advice from Farecast.
What you need to do to find those great deals.
You’ll have to use a feed-reader or a start page that supports them (like myYAHOO or iGoogle). That way, you’ll get apprised of deals shortly after they are released. Otherwise, by the time you hear about them, the deals will be yesterday’s news and you will have missed them.
If you’re following Hawaii deals, we are too. Just subscribe to our RSS feed, and we’ll share the exceptional deals as fast as we find them. If you’re not sure about what RSS is or how to use it, you can read our explanation.
Please let us know your comments and if you have any other ideas on finding the truly great deals.
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There are so many travelers to Hawaii from Vancouver, Canada that it would be great if you included deals out of Vancouver in your reviews – is this possible? Even travelers from other parts of Canada often ‘hop off’ from Vancouver so you would be doing a whole country full of interested people a service!
Hi Lynne,
I’m always looking for deals from Canada to Hawaii. If I find anything good, you will definitely see it here.
Unfortunately, the deals from Canada haven’t been very good of recent. Today Westjet has a two day sale that I looked into posting, but with the minimum fare with all fees included at about $630, it just didn’t work out to be a great deal.
Stay tuned.
Jeff
To which feeds should I subscribe to monitor DC to Hawaii deals?
Thanks!
i would like to surprise my fiance with a trip to hawaii for her birthday… not sure which island. and i am not sure how to go about it. i do know i would like to go on the weekend of 12/5 through 12/7 2008. we do not need expensive pretty hotels, because we do not make much… we are just there for the experience not the convenience. we are the outdoor type so we also do not need fancy packages for entertainment… so cheap hut and we are good for the weekend… any suggestions?
Hi Jeff,
Will you be coming for just 3 days? Between the day in each direction for travel, plus jet lag, I suggest you try to extend a bit.
Your IP address indicated you are in Arizona. So if you don’t already have tickets and budget is paramount, perhaps Honolulu would be a good choice. On the other hand, Oahu is a harder place to find “outdoor type” activities. On the outer islands, you might think about the Hawaii state parks that maintain extremely rustic cabins. On the other hand, there are fabulous hotel deals right now (and for early December), on all of the islands. If you end up on Oahu, try the Aqua hotels, which aren’t bad and are cheap.
Let us know what you end up doing.
Jeff
Here’s a “deal”. I am seeing that flights from lax to maui nonstop are 900+ for June 14-20 of 2009 on expedia. For a family of 4 that is approx. 3600+ dollars without hotel. On Pleasantholidays that same flight and 6 nights for a 1 bedroom at the Kaanapali Shores is 3,900+ dollars. That’s only like three hundred dollars for six nights hotel: actually it is a condo with a full kitchen and the complex is right on the beach. So, $3600 for a flight for 4 people without a hotel, or $3900 for 4 people with a hotel. It’s not a steal, but it is in the summer, one of the peak travel seasons, and it’s for Maui, one of the most visited.