The Exact Time To Buy A Plane Ticket To Get The Cheapest Airfare, According To A Personal Finance Expert
Like everything else, it's all in the timing.
michaeljung | Shutterstock Buying a plane ticket can be one of the messiest, most annoying processes possible if you don't have the kind of money to just buy whatever you want without a care in the world. You have to research and compare and then half the time once you actually land on a good price (no pun intended), it ends up being a fake-out that requires another $100 worth of fees if you want the privilege of breathing the plane's air or whatever.
But what if we're all just making it harder than it is? It seems like that might be the case because it turns out, like most things, there's a method to the airfare madness. And if you know what to look for — or when, in this case — you can save some big bucks.
A finance expert shared the exact time to get the cheapest airfares when buying plane tickets.
Fred Harrington is a personal finance expert at digital savings platform SaveMyCent, and he said when it comes to airfares, it's all about the time of day you log onto those travel sites. "Most people assume flight prices are random, but there's actually a pattern to when airlines update their systems," Harrington explained.
"Understanding this timing can be the difference between paying full price and snagging a genuine bargain," he went on to say. In short, there's a whole process going on behind the scenes, and once you know it, you can game it to your advantage.
Airlines use complicated algorithms to dynamically price plane tickets.
Remember that whole Ticketmaster "dynamic pricing" debacle that happened in 2023 with Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour?" And then a month later, with Beyoncé's "Renaissance Tour?" And then another month later, with Madonna's "Celebration Tour?" Yes, well, the airlines are doing the exact same nonsense.
“Think of it like a stock market for flights,” explained Harrington. “Prices fluctuate based on supply and demand." Using complicated algorithms, airlines are constantly analyzing not just demand, but their competitors' airfares and people's booking patterns.
That last one includes your own browser activities, by the way, which is why when you navigate away from a ticket to shop around, the price has often magically increased when you go back to it. And that, ladies and gents, is why you should always shop for airline tickets in "private" or "incognito" mode. You're welcome! But that's only part of the story.
The best time to get the cheapest airfare is in the wee hours of the morning.
Airlines are using all this monitoring to figure out when to reprice their tickets, release unsold seats at a discount, and use other strategies. And because their websites are so large, they have to plan these updates around two things. One, they "want to avoid crashing their systems when thousands of people are trying to book during peak hours," Harrington explained.
And two, they want to release these new prices or discounted seats at times when basically nobody is shopping for tickets. Which means the wee hours of midnight to 6 a.m. are where the bargains are, with the sweet spot being the 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. window.
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"By booking during these quiet hours, you're often catching prices before the morning rush of bookings drives them back up," he said. "You're essentially shopping when the store is empty. Airlines know most people aren't browsing flights at 4 a.m., so they're more likely to offer genuine deals to fill those seats."
Beyond those wee hours, Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be better than the rest of the week, especially the weekend, and booking 6-8 weeks before a domestic flight date typically yields the best results.
So there you have it. As Harrington put it, "dynamic pricing models have completely changed how airlines sell tickets, but most travelers don't realize they can work these systems to their advantage." Now if we can just get some hacks for those Taylor Swift tickets…
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
