Do flights get like 5 times more expensive if you wait?

[Glowchick]

I will be travelling in Europe for the month of July. I have a rough plan of going to the Greek islands, then to Germany for a bit, and then over to Ibiza, then home (to Canada) from Madrid.

I started searching for flights between those countries about a month ago on EasyJet, and I saw some flights (one way mid july) were appearing as low as 13 euros from Berlin to Palma de Mallorca. Now some are up to about 55 euros. I also considered flying from Athens to London and then to Ibiza because some of my searching proved that might be cheaper!

So basically my question is, should I book something now because these flights are eventually going to be like 150 euros or something? I don't even have a flight booked to europe yet, and I usually just freelance my way when I'm around there, so I don't usually like to be tied to a schedule too much. However, if I'm going to be saving a few hundred bucks I don't think I'd mind committing myself to a date.

 

[stephen]

you'll find that the cheapest flights to ibiza are normally from britain on the budget airlines and yes, they price goes up as it gets nearer the departure date.. the other option is to walk into a travel agent in britain the day before you want to depart to ibiza and see if there are any package tour flights avilable - these flights can be discounted quite heavily near to the departure date.

 

[islandchild]

Hello,
The budget airlines will always go up in price nearer to the time as their prices go up the more seats they sell (and they can get as high as 350€) however there can still be cheap flights from germany up till two or three days before. The other option is to fly with one of the charter companies cos if they can't shift their seats they will reduce the cost. www.foreign-office.com will help they have offices all over spain and can get you flights from all over europe they have an office in Ibiza airport and have always been spot on when ever i have asked them for anything!
Good luck x

 

[Nadia]

Heres a tip from someone who works with an airline: if its a scheduled carrier you're planning on flying (think AirCanada, Olympic, Lufthansa, Iberia) Everything is inventory based and has advance purchases. What that means is basically there are about 10 different economy inventories each with different rules and restrictions. Rarely will a scheduled carrier have last minute or sell off fares. Charter Carriers (think EasyJet, Ryanair) have the same inventory restrictions but because they only fly certain routes at certain times of the year, in order to maximize filling their aircraft they are more likely to sell a seat for peanuts just to ensure some sort of money was made, thus eliminating the advance purchase part of the rules. The catch with the charters is that because they often have these crazy internet promos running for, like, 3 days at ridiculous prices, the space is already gone which means you're bumped up to the next higher inventory! Days and seasons greatly affect your prices too! So if you're thinking of flying from Germany to Spain on a Thurs or Fri, know that a gagillion other people are trying to do the same thing so as to catch the weekend as part of their holiday...as well, no one likes the really really early flights or the really really late ones.....hope any of this helps!!!