When to buy airline tickets: The eight-week rule
Economist Makoto Watanabe thinks he has an answer. Writing in The Guardian, he says the answer is eight weeks in advance of flying.
“His findings also suggests that airline tickets are cheaper when purchased in the afternoons, rather than the mornings, prompting him to speculate that airlines are assuming business travellers will book their tickets at work in the morning on the company account, whereas leisure travellers are more likely to book from home in the afternoon,” says the Guardian.
The eight-week result stems from work published in the latest edition of the Economic Journal in which Watanabe and his colleague, Marc Möller, offer intimidating equations with a complex formula.
The pair’s equations seem in touch with conventional wisdom, though the rule, like any other, may not always be true.
“I can’t vouch for the math, but Mr Watanabe’s result seems intuitively right. It definitely jives with much of the anecdotal ticket-purchasing wisdom passed from business traveller to business traveller. But just because something is generally true doesn’t mean it’s always true (or will continue to be true in the future). Airline sale alerts and ticket price monitors are still useful tools,” writes The Economist, which adds this comment:
“If you don’t want to spend the time setting up those kinds of alerts, and just want to have a decent shot at the cheapest ticket, Mr Watanabe’s rule might be a good place to start.”
By David Wilkening
David
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