In the past few weeks, there have been several airfare sales expiring and quite a few of them being “renewed” with no particular rhyme or reason.

The bottom line is that fall is normally very choppy for airlines (good for consumers) and this is the first year where the airlines are coming off of record crowds in the summer. I suspect they are wondering if this huge summer will bleed over into the fall and thus their normal airfare sales are not as “needed” as might have been.

Airlines match quickly and raise quickly with their automated pricing systems, to wild swings can occur within a few days or even on the same day.

You can definitely save money if you are traveling before before Christmas and outside of Thanksgiving, right now — don’t dawdle though.

Yesterday Northwest canceled its 14 day advance purchase airfare sale that it started Thursday evening for smaller cities.

This particular sale was a very limited purchasing window with limited seat inventory — they might do it gain in a few days, but it shows that you need to be diligent to get the very best deals. Use technology like the FareCompare.com airfare email alerts to keep you up to date on pricing activity.

When those good prices occur, you need to be ready to purchase, plan ahead and you will be one of those 10% that get the best price on a particular flight.