My friend swore by booking flights at 3am, I tried it and something weird happened

So my buddy Dave, who travels like 4 times a year on a shoestring, told me I had to book flights at exactly 3 in the morning because airlines supposedly drop prices then. I thought he was nuts but I set an alarm for 2:45 last Tuesday and sat there half asleep refreshing the Delta site for a trip to Denver. At 3:02 the price on a round trip actually dropped from $280 to $215 for about 12 minutes. I grabbed it but then the confirmation email took over an hour to show up and I panicked thinking I got scammed somehow. Turns out it worked fine but I was so wired after that I couldn't fall back asleep until 5. Has anyone else tried this middle of the night trick and actually seen real deals or was this just random luck?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivershah2d agoTop Commenter

Are you sure your buddy meant the airlines are actually dropping prices at 3am on purpose? Because that part isn't really how it works. Airlines update their computer systems at different times, but it's not like they have some secret 3am discount club. What's more likely is that at that hour there are way fewer people searching, so if someone cancels a seat the system might adjust the price slower because nobody's there to snap it up. The delayed email is totally normal for late night transactions though, that happens with lots of websites when their systems run batch processing. You got a real deal, but it was more about good timing and less about the clock striking three.

ivan2302d ago

Hold on, 12 minutes? That’s the part that gets me. I’ve tried the 3am thing a few times but I never saw a price stick around that long. Usually if I see a drop it’s gone in like 2 or 3 minutes, so you lucked out big time. The delayed email is creepy though. I would’ve been sweating bullets too.