Are flights more expensive to buy in December?

For some reason I want to say yes, flights are more expensive around the holidays. I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I am waiting until after the first of the year to purchase flights for a trip I'm taking in March.

It really all depends ... if you are booking at a busy time, traveling at a busy time, going to a popular destination during a popular time to visit that destination ... these are all factors. however, $500 each sounds a little high for LA to Cancun but not crazy high. you're missing spring break but you'll be right at the height of college summers

I studied aviation in college and it really sucks, everything is going up. There are a lot of economic issues when it comes to flying. Jet fuel is EXTREMELY expensive and airlines are going bankrupt left and right. Things are getting more expensive, and might get worse... but the silver lining is that those articles are completely correct! When an airline first posts their schedule of flights, the rates are very high. They are hoping people will buy ASAP. Once they hit that 4 month mark, they start to look at how empty the aircraft is and adjust $. However, do not wait until a week or so before your honeymoon, that is when they jack the prices up high again because they know that people who need to fly on that particular date will pay whatever the prices are regardless. I would definitely wait until after the 1st, just to be safe. No more holiday madness !which contributes to the high prices too! Another insider tip: try to buy your tickets on a Tues/Wed they tend to be cheaper!

Okay, I think I will hold off until the new year. We booked our hotel from Wednesday to Sunday to hopefully get better rates on flights. It just freaked me out that they are $200 more expensive than when we first looked.

$1,100 is the cheapest I can find right now and that is through a Mexican airline, Volaris. American Airlines and others are even more expensive.

Sign up for farecompare.com and you will get notified via email once the route you are watching goes down. There is no charge for the service.

In general the best fares are 4 to 12 weeks out, though it can be a bit sticky if you have exact dates and your flights are getting full early on. Airlines have gotten *very* smart and computers do an amazing job filling planes with as high of fares as possible--less so to leisure markets (Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico, etc), but still pretty good. Remember how much more often you used to get an entire row to lay down and sleep? Not so much anymore...

I've heard that the more you search for rates, the site logs your info and gives you higher ones.

@megan you're right--you should always search for flights (or hotel rates or car rental rights, for that matter) in incognito or private mode on your browser.

Don't buy yet! For my honeymoon in Oct/Nov to London, I started tracking the prices with yapta.com in July. After two months of watching, I bought my tickets in early Sept. Basically, I found that my prices stayed stagnant for awhile, then dropped for one week, then slowly crept back up and stayed one price for a couple weeks, and then dropped again to the lowest price, and thats when I bought them. I read online that international flights are cheapest at about 2-3 months out. When I started tracking in July, the tickets were $1200, and I got them in Sept. for $820.

Are you flying home Sunday? Normally that can be higher then other days of the week like Tues to Tues. Your out of LA which helps. I normally will try all airports in a 1 hour range. I have a client right now saving $4000 on business class air from Denmark to Indiana. I am making him fly to Los Angeles. He will then need another flight to Indiana. You have to work the system. Where is it cheap? Can you fly there first on a different ticket?

We are about to hit Wave Season. This is when people book travel in the Spring for Summer. Wait till Jan you may have better luck.

I would say wait. I booked flight and hotel to vegas for me, fh, and my parents on cyber Monday and got a realllllly good deal. We still need to buy for FH's parents but they've been going from 590 to 690 and now 705. I've also heard about flights being cheaper on Tuesday nights and wedneday mornings. Don't know how true that is but it's worth a shot. Don't pull the trigger yet though, you might regret paying so much.