Holiday season is quickly approaching which means it’s time to start looking for flights. Knowing when to look and book flights is tricky – is it better to buy in advance or wait for a flash sale?
There’s a lot of confusing information about flights which makes you second guess when you should be buying your next plane ticket. If you’re looking to save some money on your next flight, knowing when tickets first go on sale could be the game changer.
Airlines usually release new flights around 330 and 362 days before their departure date – essentially under a year before you’re due to jet off.
When do airlines release new flights?
British Airways releases its flights 355 days before departure. While on the easyJet website, they share that you can book flights up to March 23, 2024, which is 352 days in advance.
Qantas release flights a day after easyJet’s flights (353 days before you should be flying off). Singapore Airlines on the other hand release tickets 355 before your departure date.
Virgin Atlantic flights tend to come out a little bit earlier (336 days before your departure date) whilst Wizz Air is 366 days in advance, and Lufthansa is 360 days ahead of your predicated flight date.
Ryanair, however, doesn’t have a specific date when tickets go on sale but it’s usually nine months before your trip. If you want to look into other airlines a quick search on the internet will help you.
Or you can add your departure and arrival destinations into the airlines search engine which will allow you to see the earliest open date.
You’ll be able to see how many days prior you can book their latest flight and that is their “magic number”.
Knowing this information and other key pieces of knowledge can help you get a cheap holiday deal.
CheapAir’s annual study of price flight data found that the cost of a flight chance every 4.5 days on average. The cost of each change caries by around $33 (£26.48) either up or down, the study found.
Having this information can help you look at the trend line of flight prices on comparison websites to figure out when ticket prices are expected to change.