{"id":12752,"date":"2026-09-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/?p=12752"},"modified":"2026-09-03T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:00:00","slug":"when-to-book-flights-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/when-to-book-flights-cheaper\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Book Flights to Pay Less"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the question we hear most often at the office: &#8220;should I book now, or wait and see if it drops?&#8221; The answer isn&#8217;t down to luck \u2014 there are booking windows that actually work, and September is when they start to matter.<\/p>\n<h2>How far ahead to book<\/h2>\n<p>Airlines release flights for sale roughly 10 to 12 months before departure. You don&#8217;t need to be there on day one, but one rule holds: fares are usually lower while plenty of seats are still available, and they climb as the plane fills.<\/p>\n<p>Based on Skyscanner&#8217;s historical data:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Short-haul flights<\/strong> (under three hours \u2014 Italy, Germany, London, the Balkans): one to three months ahead.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Long-haul flights<\/strong> (over six hours \u2014 the USA, Thailand, Japan): two to six months ahead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OAG analyst John Grant puts the sensible window between five months and six weeks before travel \u2014 the point where airlines have a clear read on demand and often move to fill remaining seats.<\/p>\n<h2>The day you book matters<\/h2>\n<p>For years the received wisdom was that Tuesday is the best day to book. Expedia&#8217;s 2025 analysis, drawing on the ARC and OAG ticketing databases, found something different: <strong>Sunday<\/strong> is the cheapest day to book regardless of destination \u2014 around 6% less for domestic flights and up to 17% less for international ones, compared with Monday or Friday, the most expensive days.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a small detail, but it costs nothing. If you&#8217;ve made up your mind about the trip, leave the booking for Sunday.<\/p>\n<h2>Why September is the pivotal month<\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the practical part. Holiday trips \u2014 Christmas, New Year, winter breaks \u2014 share two features: fixed dates and enormous demand. When you have no flexibility on dates, &#8220;wait and see&#8221; is the worst possible strategy.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re planning:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Christmas or New Year in Europe<\/strong>: book during September or October.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A winter trip somewhere exotic<\/strong> (Thailand, the Maldives, India, Egypt): two to six months out, which means now.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Business or premium seats in peak season<\/strong>: as early as you can \u2014 demand here stays consistently high.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>When waiting does pay off<\/h2>\n<p>There&#8217;s a flip side. Because airlines watch demand constantly, a flight that isn&#8217;t filling as expected can drop in price close to departure \u2014 usually on off-peak days or less popular routes. It&#8217;s a high-risk strategy: you might catch a bargain, or you might end up with long layovers or a sold-out flight.<\/p>\n<p>Only play it if you&#8217;re genuinely flexible on dates and the destination isn&#8217;t one of the busy ones.<\/p>\n<h2>Three things we forget<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It&#8217;s not just our own holidays.<\/strong> Check whether a local holiday or major festival falls at your destination \u2014 fares rise and availability drops.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Price isn&#8217;t the only criterion.<\/strong> A fare that&#8217;s \u20ac40 cheaper with an eight-hour layover rarely works out.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sign up for alerts.<\/strong> Airlines announce new routes and flash sales through their newsletters and social accounts first.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Would rather not think about it at all?<\/h2>\n<p>At <strong>Penguin Travels &#038; Tours<\/strong> we track the booking windows for you and tell you straight when it&#8217;s worth booking and when it&#8217;s worth waiting \u2014 for departures from Athens, Thessaloniki or Kalamata.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Planning a trip for the holidays?<\/strong> Stop by our office in Kalamata (Vasilissis Olgas 4) or call us at <strong>+30 27210 80701<\/strong> \u2014 now is the right time to lock it in.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How far ahead to book, which day of the week is cheapest, and why September is the month that decides your Christmas fare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"When to Book Flights to Pay Less","rank_math_description":"How far ahead to book, which day of the week is cheapest, and why September is the month that decides your Christmas fare.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"when to book flights, cheap flights, best time to book a flight","footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faq-tips-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12780,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752\/revisions\/12780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguintravels.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}