What Day of the Week Do Airlines Lower Their Fares?
Major airlines lower their fares at various times for a variety of reasons. Last-minute fares, for example, are often last-ditch efforts to make a profit. There are days of the week, times of the year and even hours of the day when the cost of travel is generally lower. The savvy consumer can save money with this knowledge.
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Days of the Week
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The best days of the week to travel, price-wise, are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These are the days when crowds are at their lowest since the weekend travelers have usually returned from their destinations. On these days planes tend to be half-empty and airlines are half-desperate for passengers.
Advance Notice
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Generally speaking, advance notice gets you a better price for any day of the week. The more advance notice, the better. Incrementally, fares are discounted with three days', seven days', 14 days' and 21 days' advance notice, with more advance notice generally translating into bigger discounts.
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Last-Minute Fares
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The old rule, which was hard and fast, stated that more advance time translated into a lower fare, and less time between date of purchase and date of travel meant you were going to pay more. However, with the proliferation of travel websites came the ability of airlines to unload unsold seats at the last minute. This evolved into whole sections of travel sites dedicated to offering consumers last-minute packages at substantially discounted rates. Travelocity.com is one such site.
Low-Cost Carriers
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Check with low-cost carriers first. Start with Air Tran, Jet Blue, Spirit and Southwest. Spirit Airlines, for example, has a $9 fare club. It routinely offers fares to its members for eye-popping prices, with an emphasis on last-minute travel. Here are three club member email headlines from a single week in August:
The Spirit Hot Sale and More!
With fares from only $5.90* each way!Fare Crusher and More!
Crushing fares down to $9* each way & more!Red Light Specials
from $29* each way
Best Time of Day to Look for Tickets
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According to CompareFare.com:
"... 90+ percent of all airfares that are purchased each day are filed with a clearing house in Washington DC called ATPCO (Airline Tariff Publishing Company). .. .Hundreds of thousands of airfare price and rule changes flow continuously into ATPCO each day and in turn it distributes them at specified times later that day to a handful of subscribers worldwide that provide reservation systems, including the airlines themselves (FareCompare.com is one of these handful of subscribers).
Savvy air travel shoppers should know these approximate delivery times to save both time and energy shopping ...
• Weekdays-- Three times daily at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time
• Weekends--One time daily at 5 p.m. Eastern Time (loaded after midnight the next day into reservation systems)"
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