Maximizing Your Travel Plans: How to Use Automated Flight Schedule Notifications to Your Advantage

Spoiler Alert: Most US airline tickets can be booked up to 11 months in advance with cash (vs points). Award travel on some airlines can open the booking window just a tiny bit earlier. While there is no universal timeline for when the majority of airlines post their flight schedules, it’s often up to you to visit the website and check back when it is posted. The airlines do not offer a service to subscribe to flight schedule notifications, so we built one ourselves.

How does this help maximize my travel plans?

Are you looking forward to the next time you get away but with the chaos of kids, work, and school schedules, you need to book everything well in advance? Have you decided on the perfect family vacation, only to realize that the flights you wanted are sold out, or don’t have enough seats left? We know how it goes. It’s a total bummer, but the good news is that it can all be avoided with a better planning system!

The first thing you want to know is when the best time is to book your flights so you can take advantage of the best pricing and widest availability. In this article, we’ll share the exact dates when each airline posts its flight schedule. But remember, this is a guideline, sometimes they post their schedules a week or two before or after these dates. To make sure you know exactly when they go live, subscribe to our flight schedule notifications now.

This allows you to take the mental load of checking in and out of vacation planning and gives you peace of mind that we’ll be doing the heavy lifting of monitoring the airline websites daily to let you know as soon as they are available for booking.

Here’s a quick table of the different booking times:

• Alaska Airlines: 330 days

• Allegiant Air: 6-9 months ahead of time

• American Airlines: 331 days beforehand.

• Delta Airlines: Book flights 331 days in return

• Frontier Airlines: 258 days before on average

• Hawaiian Airlines - 330 days

• JetBlue: 331 days in advance.

• Southwest Airlines: Booking window varies, usually 6-9 months.

• Spirit Airlines: Usually 10-11 months beforehand.

• United Airlines: 330 days, with the exceptions of MileagePlus award bookings, which extend to either 334 or 337 days.

So if you’re like us and a busy parent who wants to take advantage of the best “Wanna Get Away” fares, but doesn’t want to check back into the airline websites daily, consider signing up for our notifications. We’ll let you know exactly when the flight schedules are posted so that you can plan the rest of your vacation and not worry about the flights being sold out or unavailable.

A Few Special Cases

Alaska And American Airlines Have Special Rules: You can book tickets on Air France airlines (a partner of Alaska) one year in advance by phone, but 331 days in advance through the website and app. American Airlines limits online bookings to 331 days in advance but not for earlier dates even with its miles or on partner airlines

Is It Actually Cheaper to Book Early?

The lowest fares for a flight are generally offered no later than three to six months before the departure date. Discounts can sometimes be found with some airlines - often low-cost carriers that wait until just before take-off, but if you’re considering flying airlines like Southwest, the sooner the book the lower the fare you’ll get. Often the “Wanna Get Away” fares are only available in a certain amount and after they are sold out, travelers are left with purchasing Anytime Fares or Business Select which are the most expensive.

For other domestic airlines, finding the best price can depend on whether you are paying with cash or miles and the policy of the specific airline. If you’re nervous about finding the best fare, but also worried it will sell out, consider purchasing a refundable-class ticket. This will save your spot on the flight, but allow you the freedom to shop around if you’re booking a flight well in advance.

What About International Flights?

International flight bookings are more complicated and different compared to the booking of domestic tickets. If an airline shows no availability beyond a certain date, try contacting them directly — or even through social media.

Key Takeaways:

• For most U.S. airlines, you can purchase cash tickets up to 11 months ahead of your travel date.

• The booking window might open even earlier for award travel on certain airlines.

• Low-cost airlines like Southwest.com or Jet Blue typically do not follow a uniform booking timeline.

• The only way to stay on top of when the flight calendars are released is by subscribing to our notifications (or checking the websites yourself everyday)

• Early booking doesn’t always correlate with lower fares, but it does guarantee that you have the most options for booking and are able to complete your vacation planning early.