The best time to buy flights for your summer vacation, the holidays, and more

CheapAir's survey notes that the best time to buy flights for your summer vacation is 47 days in advance. But, consider when you want to take your summer vacation. As Business Insider previously reported, August 23 is known as "cheap flight day" — some experts claim that it’s the cheapest time to fly, while others say that it’s the cheapest time to buy a flight.

In actuality, there is some truth to both. Fares tend to drop for late summer travel, and the end of August is also a great time to purchase tickets for fall flights, as many destinations enter their off season, Business Insider reports.

The best time to buy flights for your winter vacation (excluding the holidays, which we'll tackle next) is 62 days in advance, according to the CheapAir report. For fall travel, it's 69 days in advance, and for spring travel, it’s 90 days in advance.

According to a 2018 report by Skyscanner, a flight search engine, the best time to book flights for Christmas and New Year’s Eve is 11 weeks out—the week of October 22 for Christmas, and the week of October 29 for New Year's.

CheapAir has a holiday trend report where you can track prices for Thanksgiving and winter holiday travel.

One of the best ways to find deals is to be flexible with your travel plans. A number of airfare search engines, including Kayak, Skyscanner and Google Flights let you search by date or location only.

For example, If your dates are set but you’re flexible on the place, both Kayak and Skyscanner have "anywhere/everywhere" options in their search functions. Both sites will show you the cheapest locales for your preferred days.

If you have your heart set on a specific destination, all three of these search engines will also allow you to compare the cheapest times to visit, set price alerts for when the cost increases or decreases, and allow you to search for nearby airports that may offer better flights.

Social media can also be very useful in helping you to find the best airfare. JetBlue, for example, tweets about flash sales — I once purchased a $29 one-way ticket from New York City to Washington, D.C. because the airline was having a Leap Year sale. If you have a destination in mind, research the airlines that fly into that airport, join their newsletters, and keep an eye out on their social platforms.