Calling experienced USA travellers. Flights to USA- how far in advance?

[Crackery]

If I wanted to buy flights for next June/ July, Scotland to Washington then return from Florida to Scotland, when ya the optimum time to book these flights? How far in advance are they released and is there a cheapest window?

Really grateful for any advice. Tia

In "normal" times such flights are put online around 11 months in advance. I doubt very much that you will get direct flights and will probably have to travel via London Heathrow.

I would not want to book anything until Mr Trump lifts the US travel ban (which is not going to be happening anytime soon particularly given how the US is not managing with coronavirus).

Thank you. Both bits of info v helpful!

Hi OP

June , July is close to summer holidays so I believe all you’re likely to get booking early is a good seat choice.

If I can offer advice, not knowing how critical it is that you’d have to fly on certain dates... book the return first, soonest, as you’ll have the option to upgrade seats before they sell out ( they’re overnight flights and you may want to rest as much as possible on the way back, especially if you’re flying into London/Manchester first )
Secondly, if the internal USA flight is critical to the trip schedule then accept that bargain hunting needs to be brief , the priority is to get seats booked on that part of the trip.

If you decide to go on the same airline out and back, you might consider booking both legs on the one booking - if you cancel, it’s only one deposit lost.

Some particular advice for your trip... we’ve done the Washington to Florida flight ... ( I’m assuming we’re talking about Washington DC ! ) we stayed near DuPont Circle and on the last day got the underground to Ronald Reagan airport for a late morning flight. Nice and easy.

If you want to do a fly/drive trip then you can get booking now OP. BA and Virgin Holidays both start taking bookings for trips that contain more than just the flight element approx 14 months in advance, but these flights are subject to change as schedules get firmed up closer to the departure date (and they can move quite a bit IME).

If you literally just want to book the flights then it's around 11 months ahead of your return date and if you want to travel during school holidays and/or on certain specific dates/flights then it's a good idea to be pro-active. Having said that, it's almost impossible to get through to BA on the phone at the moment. I haven't tried Virgin Atlantic, but the BA booking line is only being manned for reduced hours and I gave up last week after 35 mins on hold. Let's just say that trying to arrange/rearrange travel during a pandemic is extremely difficult to do! However, if you are booking online, then just keep checking the dates you want until you see your return dates pop up.

As for prices - both of those airlines often hold seat sales around Christmas/New Year time. You need to sign up for their marketing emails. If you're prepared to shop around with different airlines, inc. US carriers, Norwegian, Air India, etc then head to Kayak, Momondo, Expedia, etc.

Everything @zafferana has said above but as a quick ps, if you are considering looking at Norwegian (who do some great deals Stateside), get your self some good scheduled airline failure insurance cover. We’ve never had any problems flying them but their finances have been a bit ropey for the last couple of years and that’s before Covid -19. Hopefully they’ll still be around next year but who knows?

I usually book USA holidays in the first couple of days in January as I find that there are flash deals on Sky Scanner.