Best time to buy flight tickets?

[Chopstheduck]

Thinking of flying to San Francisco and coming back from LAX. Seen good direct flights on Virgin for 850, but no idea really if that is a good price or not, and how likely they are to fluctuate. Short haul we'd normally book November time to get the best price, is long haul similar? Never booked my own long haul flights before.

i always select a number of random dates (but the same week day as i want to fly) and see how the price moves over that time. so if going in Jan 2013 i would look at flights before christmas, around Oct half term etc. this way you get more of a feel for the prices. the price you pay is determined by how many other people want to go at the same time as you which unless there is something on like a festival or school hol is difficult to determine. try the above and see if it helps

BA now has a facility on its website to show you the current lowest prices to a place month by month. It is worth looking now - we got tickets to the east coast a couple months ago that were £99 each way plus taxes. I just can't see prices going lower than that. Bear in mind it is cheaper to fly mid week and some times of day will be cheaper than others, etc etc.

Thanks for the help

found that BA thing by googling, it's rather good! Surprised to find that flights are currently more expensive in July atm than august.

looking for London to Orange County at end of July 2013 and am horrified how high everything is... I think they are about £150 up on last year per person. Have been trying to follow other travel forums and the advice is to wait another month or so... Also foun out that June 24 is a landmark date when prices rocket... Try to fly before then if you can... But that won't work for school holiday chasers