USA internal flights

[ILOVEALLCAKES]

We will be in New York next month for 4 nights and plan to fly to Jacksonville to stay with friends.
Having never flown internally in America, I wonder if it’s better to book flights now or nearer the time.

[mycarpetsun]

Next month?! You've left it quite late. I tried to book flights to Florida next month and there weren't many left. No hotels or air bnbs left either.

[BritWifeinUSA]

You’re going next month and you’re wondering whether to wait until “nearer the time”? How much closer do you want to wait? It is March next weekend.

Bearing in mind that next month the NYS colleges are on spring break and Florida is one of the top destinations for spring breakers you are probably too late for the best fares. Flights go on sale 330 days in advance. Americans love to book early. My husband (American) was flapping a few weeks ago that we hadn’t booked our tickets to go to see his family in California for Christmas yet.

[ILOVEALLCAKES]

Thank you 😊

@tanstaafl - thank you. Not sure why I’d not thought of looking at flights on the near future. The prices do rocket.

@Forrandomposts - I’ve asked my friend to have a look and see how much cheaper they are if she books on our behalf.

[Forrandomposts]

Can you get your friends in Jacksonville to book them for you? They are much cheaper from within the US!

[tanstaafl]

If it’s critical to the holiday that you have to be on a flight to Jacksonville then you’ll have to bite the bullet and get those seat booked and guaranteed soonest ?

Alternatively, and risky imho, you could look at prices for the same journey travelling this weekend? Compare against different dates between now and then?

[Puddleofmilk]

Airlines over in the states work much the same as over here, Southwest and JetBlue are very like Ryanair & easyJet, getting there earlier is often cheaper.

The big ones with international miles programs (Delta etc) there is less of a rush depending on if your using miles Vs payments. If you collect miles with BA, Virgin etc then they have tie ups.

For example, you used to be able to (haven't checked if you still can) convert Tesco's points into Avios miles then you could spend these on American airlines for your flights