Airline Price Spike?

[BigTxEars]

So I was going to book 5 tickets on Delta from Houston to MCO this morning. $328 per ticket round trip was the price at 9am this morning. I could not book as I was missing one date of birth (family friend going with us) so I planned to wait until tonight. Just check and now the exact same flight is $468 per ticket. But not only Delta went up so did American and Sprit as well. Pretty big spike for 12 hours

Now I am going to wait to see when Southwest allows booking the week we are going (last in Jan) if those tickets are too high we might just have to drive, swore I never would but we can stop in Mobil and see the U.S.S. Alabama along the way

 

[Rob562]

Historically, I think they say Tuesday noontime is the best time to book airline tickets. And yes, prices can spike even across multiple airlines. What often happens is one airline decides to raise their prices, and then other major airlines monitor their competitors and raise their prices to match. (Though sometimes a single airline will raise prices, the others will decide not to, and then the original one slinks back and lowers the price again)

My suggestion is to sign up on yapta.com (a sister site to kayak.com) and save the flights you're looking at. Yapta will track the prices and alert you when the price goes down (they don't track Southwest, though).
Even after the purchase, if you're on an airline that gives flight credit when fares drop below your purchase price (like Jetblue), Yapta will inform you of those drops.

Our one-way flight from Boston to Orlando in late October was purchased at the end of June at about $160 per person. (The start date for our trip had been in flux, so we'd already bought our return flight separately becuse it was a good deal we didn't want to miss) That $160 flight spiked to $253 in mid-July, and is still $228...

-Rob

 

[BigTxEars]

Good advice. Weird thing is the price spike was across Delta, American even Spirit airlines. It was also across both the airline sites and the sites like Expedia etc. The next day all the prices went back down, we ended up buying tickets Thursday for $328 per ticket. So it was a one day wide spread super price hike.....weird. Still not sure why that would happen.

 

[MrDee]

Be careful what airline you book with. Sometimes there are charges you may not have considered. I only mention this since I see you mentioned Spirit Airlines.

They charge for carry-ons, and even charge different fees at the same airport for the same thing. For example, they will charge you one price at the check-in area for your carry on, but if you want to wait until you get to the gate with it, they will charge an even higher rate there. Plus, they charge for every checked bag.

Just some food for thought.