Should I book flight now or leave it a while?

Heading to New York in mid July but flights seem very expensive - about €750 in total. Am wondering if I should book now in case they go up further or should I wait in the hope that they may fall? If I was to go next week and book today - I would pay about €200 less.

A difficult question which nobody,including this travel agent, can accurately answer.

It's a gamble.

What dates are you planning ?

oldnick said:

A difficult question which nobody,including this travel agent, can accurately answer.

Click to expand...

Another difficult one for you Oldnick...how reliable/accurate is the View Map link in the Seat Map section on A Lingus' website, when going thru a booking ?

If the flight is relatively empty would this spark a sale ?

It's not accurate at all.

It only shows seats reserved , not the total bookings.

jhegarty said:

It's not accurate at all.

It only shows seats reserved , not the total bookings.

Click to expand...

Exactly...what PyritePete is seeing is the (few) people who've paid to select their seat rather than the total amount of people booked on the flight.

Cheers

The view map question from pyrite pete is interesting.
I always assumed that -based on my own cheapskate behaviour - few people would bother to pay for reserved seating on flights of under ,say, 90 mins - but for a long haul flight more people would pay.

Checking with my contacts in EI this proves to be the case - for every extra hours flight there's a proportionate increase in people who pay to reserve seats.

So, whilst seat maps to U.K. and North-West Europe mean very little, the map-seats to USA destinations may give a better indication as to whether prices will change.

So - and this proves my life is boring - I've recorded several seat maps and prices on US flights some months ahead to see if one can accurately forecast price changes.

If only I was interested in soccer.

Also EI do not charge for seat reservations on long haul flights.

Then in that case ( -and thanks for that - I should have known better!) it would be even more relevent to check the seat map for USA flights as surely most people would reserve a seat if that reservation was free.
Thus, contrary to posts above, the seat plan to USA could be a fair guide to how full a flight was and thus indicate whether there may be a price change.

I'd imagine it would be still a gamble, though if one was not too fussy about the date it may be worth checking seat plans as I shall be doing henceforth.
Never to old to learn and I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never paid too much attention to seat plans before.

Thanks Moral Ethos & Oldnick, I was just curious really. I just assumed AL may use the seat map as a means of getting punters to book seats quicker ( if available seats were few) or if loads of seats were available...I was hoping for a bargain )

I use skyscanner.ie. Its a good site to see the fares of different airlines. Even covers ryanair. I fly to the US about once a year. I is a gamble to try and guess the best time to buy a flight.

Nice one dogfish - thankyou!