“Is it too early? Is it too late?”
“I don’t want to miss this deal!”
“Do you think the price will sky-rocket if I wait another week?”
If this is your inner monologue every time you attempt to hit the confirmation button on your next flight, continue reading on. Sure, we’ve all heard opinions about what may be the best time, day, or even search engine to use. However, new data shows that carriers have new pricing strategies that are affected by many different factors (e.g. economy, competition, new tools, etc.). The best way to interpret all of this data is by trying to understand the trends.
Flying Nonstop Is Cheaper Than Connecting
Most interesting, it used to be that you could save money by offering to connect along the way. Now it seems that traveling has reached an all-time high, and carriers do not need to fill seats by connections alone. Flights are now almost always full to capacity, and airline pricing favors nonstop more often than before.
“Expedia Group and Airlines Reporting Corp., collected and analyzed billions of dollars worth of airline tickets bought in 2018. They found no real correlation between price and number of stops.” – WSJ
Sunday & Tuesday Offer the Best Possible Discounts
The same study (by Expedia and ARC) found that tickets can be almost 36% cheaper if you buy on Sunday than most other days. Tuesday can yield the cheapest tickets, but only by a few dollars or so. Still, you’d rather save a few dollars than see the price hike up like if you looked on, say, a Thursday or Friday. The reason this happens is because typically business travelers are buying during the week. Family and vacationers are searching during the weekend, and those discounted prices are marketed towards them. A discounted ticket price could be the temptation needed for them to pull the trigger on a purchase.
“Tuesday was the go-to day for the cheapest tickets for years. Airline pricing executives would come to work Monday, tally up weekend sales and launch a sale with newspaper ads on Tuesday. Now pricing is largely a computer-controlled, 24/7 business. Airlines can tailor their best prices to specific days and target shoppers with online offers and flash sales on social media.”
Oil Prices and Airfare Are No Longer Linked
In the past, when oil prices changed, we saw that correlate to the price of airfare. Nowadays, it seems that the low cost of oil hasn’t been reflected in the price of airfare.
“The Expedia/ARC study found the same disconnect. It also showed that ticket prices on popular domestic and international routes increased about 5% last year over 2017. The reason, again, centers on strong demand and industry consolidation. Airlines aren’t setting prices so much based on their costs anymore. So if you see oil prices jump higher, no need to wait to buy tickets hoping airfares might drop if oil drops.”
All in all, the airline industry is a tough cookie to crack. Sure, there are trends to watch and best guesses in terms of which days to buy. However, gone are the days manual configuring by airline pricing executives who would come into the office on Monday to crunch numbers and run sales for the week. This has been replaced by computer programs that run continuously, which allows airlines to tailor their pricing to specific days and target social media trends. At the end of the day, just being aware of rising and falling prices will allow you to be aware of when you should lock down your next flight and when the best time to say “pass” may be. Plan ahead, don’t wait until the last minute, and if you can be flexible, that’s a big help!