Family Holiday in US in 2016 - when is cheapest time to book flights?

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Also, are there any US airports which are cheaper to fly into than others?

We have promised the DCs a "big" holiday next year but want to keep costs down. At this stage, we are flexible about where we go. There are five of us.

Is is best to book early? When are flights released? Or are late deals available?

Flights typically released 11-12 months ahead...

Some research suggests it's best to book eight weeks in advance but that seems last minute to me!

Use sites like momondo and adioso, I think you can do vaguE searches,like "uk to US" and it will tell you the cheapest airports. Also, use the kayak explore tool to find out where you can go for your budget.

Thanks, that's useful info.

I don't think I'd dare wait until eight weeks before - hotels and whatnot would also need booking....

Yes I agree. Some flight search engines also show you whether prices will go up or down, based on historic data. I think bing travel does, and maybe Kayak.

I booked a couple of weeks ago to go at October half term. I doubt the flights will get cheaper for where I'm going but might be different for NY say

I think you stand the best chance of lowest fares, the earlier you book.

We are just booking tickets to Miami via New York for July and they are eye wateringly expensive with absolutely no chance of going down between now and then.

From my experience of watching flight prices from last November for a holiday this August, and finally realising in March that they were never going to go down, I would say you have to accept that you CAN'T get a cheap flight to the States anymore. It's basically £800 each, for the West Coast at least, whatever your age.

However, I will say that apparently the falling cost of oil will affect flight prices apparently starting from next year. So maybe we just chose the worst year to go.

I've paid £3200 for 2 adults and 2 kids to go to west coast USA, and that's indirect flights with a 20 hour stopover in Iceland!

I track flights for LON-Florida and we usually go over the Easter holidays. I start tracking from April the year before, although flights aren't always released until May (I'm looking now for next Easter and some flights aren't quite yet released).

Last year we booked in August 2014 for Easter 2015 and managed to fly the 4 of us (2 adults, 2 kids) indirect to Tampa with ok layovers (max 5 hrs) for £2400 and I'm hoping to beat that this year.

If you're looking for school holiday dates, I'd decide what area you want to be in and start tracking via sky scanner or similar (e.g. for Florida I look at Miami, Orlando and Tampa, and have looked at Atlanta but never actually ended up there - we don't always go to Orlando during our stays though).

I work in travel, if you are looking to go over school holidays I would book your flights as soon as they are available. Schedule flights to destinations such as Orlando are pretty much booked up immediately for the lower fares. Easter 2016 for Orlando is already looking chocca.

New York is usually quite cheap. Los Angeles, Boston, Washington DC and Orlando can be quite cheap too, especially if you're prepared to take indirect flights to Orlando. I guess lots of places have cheap flights, but those are the only ones I check.
We usually book our flights about 4-6 months in advance and have never paid more than £440 per adult for east coast.