How far in advance should you book a flight?
Book 1–1.5 months before departure. Tracking the same flights at every lead time (81,915 flights on 17,344 routes, 2026-06-14 to 2026-10-30), that window had the smallest average premium over each flight's lowest fare: +17.2%, against +49.6% in the last 3 days.
Piratefly price data, updated 2026-10-31 · 4,928,479 fares observed 2026-06-14 → 2026-10-30 · CC BY 4.0
The numbers
- 0–3 days ahead: +49.6% on average (median +23.5%), 19.1% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 4–7 days ahead: +42.6% on average (median +19.6%), 20.4% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 1–2 weeks ahead: +34.5% on average (median +14.8%), 23.2% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 2–3 weeks ahead: +27.1% on average (median +10.5%), 26.8% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 3–4 weeks ahead: +21% on average (median +6.7%), 33.4% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 1–1.5 months ahead: +17.2% on average (median +4.2%), 40.1% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 1.5–2 months ahead: +17.5% on average (median +3.8%), 42% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 2–3 months ahead: +22.4% on average (median +6.1%), 39.8% of flights at their lowest fare.
- 21.4% of all lowest fares fell in the 1–1.5 months window, more than in any other.
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Source and method
One-way economy fares observed by Piratefly's price tracker, not booking data or surveys. Full method, all charts and CSV: When to book flights — Piratefly research. Open dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.23290390. Please credit "Piratefly" with a link to this page.
Check any route live: Fare Index · Piratefly API · MCP server.
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