When Should You Buy Flights For Italy?

Is it better to buy flights for Italy earlier or later, closer or father away from when you leave?

This is going to be one of the biggest questions for any first-time traveler, and for good reason! Buying a flight at the right time can save you a decent chunk of money, potentially even enough to spend an extra night in Italy!

Italy's own ITA Airways.

Which brings me to my first point.

Should you wait to buy flights if money isn't a consideration?

If you're someone for whom money really isn't a concern, or at least, saving a few hundred dollars on a flight isn't really much of an incentive, then I urge you to go ahead and buy the flight as soon as you decide on where you're going. Heck, I'd recommend going ahead and purchasing a refundable ticket as soon as you get an urge to travel to Italy. That way, your first major expense is out of the way.

The closer to the leave date, the more the flight fills up, and the less likely you'll be able to sit with your partner/friend/family.

So, to make this short, if you're planning on going to Italy, and money (or, a few hundred dollars) isn't really a consideration, buy the flights as soon as possible.

Do flights get cheaper the closer you get to the departure date?

Now, if you're someone for whom a few hundred dollars does matter (like the person writing this), welcome to the section on saving money!

Flights tend to follow a trend of being expensive up until 10-6 weeks out. A $1,200 flight might drop to $800, or lower, and then skyrocket back up as they try to fill the last few seats with last-minute travelers or business travelers.

So if you're interested in planning a trip to Italy, you might have to wait until buying flights becomes uncomfortably close.

Darcy and I tend to buy tickets for flight around 6-8 weeks out. We've found that 6 weeks out usually has the cheapest prices, however, we run the risk of not sitting together as most of the seats have been bought and assigned/selected at this point.

A tool like Google Flights does a solid job of showing you the price for a spread of dates, and from there you can narrow down the results through arrival/departure time, total trip time (as to not accidentally get too excited by a 12hr layover trip), and even carrier, if you have points/miles and you'd like to use them for your trip.

What if my dates change?

This is a reasonable fear as dates can change for any number of reasons: time off is denied, dream hotel is overbooked for those dates, someone starts to get sick, etc. Most airlines offer three general options: no refund, partial refund or eCredit, fully refundable. The "no refund" option often means that ticket is also non-changeable.

However, the "partially refundable" and "fully refundable" flights are often changeable, which can be a major benefit. For the price of the fare difference (often free, or less than $100) you can change your flight.

Most airlines run the same flights daily, so if you're really excited by your noon departure from Rome, you can simply re-book that flight for the next day, or the next week, if your plans change.

I wouldn't recommend cancelling the ticket and re-purchasing a new one for two reasons.

First, the tickets that are fully refundable are also easily changeable, so unless you've decided to not go to Italy at all, it's usually better to keep the ticket you have and change it if necessary.

Second, if you do cancel and rebook, some credit card companies might momentarily freeze that purchase or your account as it can look like fraud.

So I'd only recommend cancelling a ticket if you're no longer planning on going to Italy.