Upgrade Travel Blog has a detailed explanation about why the myth of buying tickets Wednesday at midnight is wrong.
The myth goes this way:
- What’s the absolute best time to purchase a ticket directly from the airlines? Turns out it’s Wednesday from midnight to 1a.m. in the time zone of the airline’s “home base.”[…] Why? That’s when the computer systems of most airlines get rid of the reserved but unbooked lower fare reservations.
However,
- Held reservations don’t all expire Wednesdays
- Most fares that are put on hold aren’t that cheap to begin with
- Midnight isn’t when new fares are loaded — they’re distributed at 10:00am, 12:30pm, and 8pm EST and loaded about 2-6 hours later in the GDS and airline sites.
Read the whole thing.