Is There Really a Cheapest Time of Day to Book a Flight?



It’s popular advice we’ve all read on one site or another: Book early in the morning for the cheapest flights! Or don’t book on a Friday night! Or only book at noon on a Tuesday. Or only book during a full moon. (Okay, that one we haven’t actually heard, but we’re sure someone, somewhere, has decreed it.) So we at Hopper were curious: Does the time of day you buy your flight really matter? Are certain times of day cheaper? In the name of science, we dove into a whole lot of data (namely, about 20 million separate flight searches over the course of four months) and mapped what we found.飛行機運航状況

... short answer is yes, the time of day you book kind of matters. The longer answer is, but not really.

Here’s what we found.

Tuesday Around Midnight is the Cheapest Time to Book

We found that travelers who search for flights on Tuesday at midnight save about 6% on their flights, making this the cheapest time of the week to book. In general, flights were slightly cheaper at midnight earlier in the week (Monday through Wednesday). However, this is only applicable to about 1.6% of U.S. markets, meaning that it’s not likely you’ll find the same savings on your specific route. And midnight later in the week actually gets more expensive. So put the “always book at midnight” myth to bed.
Hopper did find that shoppers pay about 3% higher fares on Fridays at around 3 A.M. This variation is probably due to the way airlines manage their sales, often starting early in the work week and ending before the weekend. So prices may, in fact, spike a little bit before the weekend kicks off. This travel legend does hold (somewhat) true: Avoid booking late at night later in the week.