When is the best time to purchase flights?

I've heard recently that the best time is now 6 weeks beforehand. It used to be, and I guess to a point that the earlier the better. 

Sky scanner only good for long haul and finding which carrier does the route. Am turn between a few weeks in latin America, Africa or a few weeks on a train in April watching football

Tuesday evening/Wednesday mornings

Handy that, cheers parky

4am

Well, being perfectly honest, I was looking at flying to New York this weekend, and I searched flight prices yesterday and they were as cheap for this Friday as for any other Friday in the next four months, if not cheaper. Now, that may well be because the transatlantic leisure market is weak at this time of year but I have a feeling it is regularly like that. It was working out about €480 return to NYC flying with Air France via Paris, on their A380. I decided against it, ultimately.

For Ryanair and short haul flights, the best time is generally four to six weeks out, depending on the flight. There is an issue if you are looking to go at a time of either unexpected or unseasonal demand (e.g. for football matches) when it is often but not always better to book earlier. However, if you are looking to book general summer holiday flights or weekend away flights, and there is nothing special happening in your destination while you are away, then four to six weeks is usually ideal.

There are also usually cheap flights away from here when there are events on here - airlines have extra capacity to and from here. For example, if you want to get cheap flights to France, have a look at the weekend they are playing here in the six nations. There may very well be some cheap flights to France, especially rugby areas in the centre, over that weekend, especially if carriers (aka Ryanair) have put on extra capacity to bring people here, as there will be corresponding flights leaving here beforehand to go out to France and running round trips again afterwards, assuming they use airplanes based here.

There is little enough difference between checking on sky scanner and direct with the airlines. Either way, you will have cookies stored on your computer. What I would do, however, if possible, is one of the following: 1) delete cookies, 2) use a different browser or 3) browse prices from a different computer in a totally different location (e.g. use your work computer). Sometimes, airlines will see that you are looking up prices for a set weekend and then bump up the price they are charging you. If you take the above steps, it shouldn't be clear to them you are the same person, and you will get normal prices. If they are tracking your IP address, deleting cookies and changing browser or device won't work, but changing location will.

Also, be careful of the agents you see in skyscanner. Most of them are grand but make sure you do a little background research on them before just booking with the cheapest one. Sometimes, it can be worth an extra €5 or €10 per person just to have the certainty you get with booking direct with the airline.

Incidentally, you do know that skyscanner do a "search by whole month" option, right? That should let you see when the cheapest time to book flights is, in general. For instance, using that, I can see that the prices for *direct* return flights to Lisbon from Dublin, Friday to Sunday, are as follows over the next eight weeks:
This weekend: €328
Next weekend: €122
13th to 15th Feb: €132
20th to 22nd Feb: €149
27th Feb to 1st Mar: €104
6th to 8th Mar: €97
13th to 15th Mar: €132
20th to 22nd Mar: €114
27th to 29th Mar: €159
3rd to 5th April: €131 (Easter Sunday)
10th to 12th April: €126
17th to 19th April: €86
24th to 26th April: €104

Now, that doesn't take account of the fact some of those could be agency prices rather than ryanair direct (although I think they are Ryanair direct) and the fact some may involve mad flight times (the €97 involves a 7am departure from Dublin) but it generally demonstrates that about four to five weeks away may be the cheapest time to book.

It doesn't take account of seasonal demand at all though, so there is a flaw there. However, it does seem to show that the three weekends around Easter are all more expensive, which is to be expected, I suppose. Looking forward into May and the prices are similar though, so it is hard to know. If you are flexible as to which weekend you can take, you may be better to do that. In May, the range goes from €94 to €149, depending on which weekend away you take, so flexibility in that sense may well be the best way of getting the cheapest weekend away.

Either way, however, flights to Lisbon seem to be in a narrow enough range of €100 ish to €140 ish, so fretting about when to book is only going to save the cost of a taxi fare to the airport.

Very well put SD...

Had a bit of read on this too. Tuesday afternoon is the best time to book, although that data is mainly from the USA flights. 30 or so day beforehand is the cheapest time.

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