Kayak’s Best Time to Travel Tool Predicts the Best Time to Book a Flight

Caroline Morse Teel is the Managing Editor for SmarterTravel Media. Follow her adventures around the world on Instagram @TravelWithCaroline.

See recent posts by Caroline Morse Teel

Booking a flight ticket can feel a bit like playing the stock market. Will prices drop or skyrocket if you wait longer to buy?

Travel booking site Kayak aims to take the guesswork out of buying a plane ticket with its new Best Time to Travel tool. The site uses data from billions of travel queries to predict future flight prices and help travelers decide when the best time to go is—and when to buy for the best deal.

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How it Works

On the Best Time to Travel homepage, enter your destination and choose one of the preselected lengths of trip options (four days, seven days, or 14 days). There’s no way to filter down by airport here, only by city.

The tool will then tell you what month you should go for the best weather, the least amount of crowds, and the cheapest airfare. This can be helpful if you’re flexible on when you’re traveling, but if you have specific dates in mind, you’ll have to wait until the third step to get more customized data.

After you’ve completed step one, the tool allows you to narrow your trip down by month, and then will display the best dates to travel along with a price chart so you can see how fares fluctuate throughout the month.

Once you’ve picked the dates you want to travel, scroll down to step three, where you can plug in your exact itinerary and Kayak will show you the latest date by when you should book your flight by in order to get the cheapest price.

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