Q – 11.18.23 – Dear, dear Traveltruthers. We recently learned that our son and daughter-in-law are going to give birth to our first grandchild. In their wisdom, they live in Silicon Valley while we happily reside in Rhode Island. This, for us, means that we are going to start flying out to the west coast several times per year. Our question has to do with domestic airline planning. When should we be looking at flights/costs and is there one web site you would recommend that we can play with to learn the ropes. From everything of yours that we have read, it seems that for flights within the US you recommend searching online but doing the actual booking directly with the airline? True?
A – For domestic flights, we recommend getting serious about 100 days prior to departure date. After that point, fares begin to rise. We would use the much improved Google Flights website. This site will give you the fare history of your selected flights and it will tell you what it things is a fair price for your ticket. You can set a price alert when you your ticket hits the recommend price range. You can easily set up the site to notify you via e-mail when the prices are about top change.
Congratulations. Wishing you many more and a regular commute out west.
