Does booking months in advance make a difference?

Two trips coming up.

First will be to Las Vegas around the 9/10th March to the 20th. Either flying LGW-LAS or LHW-SFO-LAS.

Second will be LHW-HKG-SYD-LHW or whatever.

Can't book the second yet as I don't know the exact dates we're going and also few dates not available yet.

I could easily book the flight to Las Vegas this week for £750ish in PE (K), but would it make a difference if I wait a couple of months?
Am I likely to find, especially on this route, that there won't be any seats available or the price rise/falls depending on demand, operational costs etc?
Also balancing this with the fact the full fare comes off my credit card months in advance (unless it's 0% interest - although I could pay on another card, then transfer the balance to the Virgin CC and get 0% for 6 months, but probably lose out on the 750 FC miles)...
This is the major thing that's bothering me about the SYD flight. Would ideally like to be flying UC but £3k is a lot to come off in one go well in advance........shame with Virgin you can't pay say a 20% deposit and the remainder a month before travelling like high street travel agents do.

[Scrooge]

Ok,the LAS loads are very high,so the price is only going to go up.

By LHW im guessing you mean LHR(Heathrow),well the SFO route is nice because you will be sitting upstairs,but you could fly into LAX then fly up to Vegas from there,round trip price LAX-LAS should be around $80.

Also the flight into LAX-SFO is cheaper than flying into LAS by a large margin.

Originally posted by jetwet1
Ok,the LAS loads are very high,so the price is only going to go up.

By LHW im guessing you mean LHR(Heathrow),well the SFO route is nice because you will be sitting upstairs,but you could fly into LAX then fly up to Vegas from there,round trip price LAX-LAS should be around $80.

Also the flight into LAX-SFO is cheaper than flying into LAS by a large margin.

Having one of those days where I get easily confused by airport codes!

Did compare flights from SFO-LAS to LAX-LAS and the SFO one was around £114 whereas the LAX one was around £60 for the same length of flight.

[Scrooge]

Sorry to make you my punching bag:D but they are not the same length of flights,but the main reason for the lower cost is Southwest airlines.

They fly out of LAX to Vegas,but in the bay area they fly out of Oakland rather than SFO.


Intersting article explaining

http://www.erau.edu/research/BA590/chapters/ch8.htm

I recently flew (Uni)TED from SFO to Las Vegas for around £170. Flight was booked over the phone whilst I was in San Francisco (same flight for around £114 on Opodo at present). Took just over an hour to fly there.
According to Opodo, LAX-LAS is 1h5m with no stops, so roughly the same flying time.
Possibly different airlines, but still a 50% price difference.

Never actually looked at Oakland......just as accessible from SF using the BART though. Went from SFO last time as I was catching a connecting Virgin flight from there, so it was convenient and the Airbus' TED use are rather nice.


Added: Just had another quick look and it came up with American Airlines from LAX-LAS for around £85. There was more choice yesterday and for £20 less. Still around £112.80 from SFO-LAS on United (1h20m ish)