Travel Tuesday ’19 ready to take wing
For those with wanderlust, “Travel Tuesday” may be just the ticket.
This bargain-hunting day has emerged on the heels of Black Friday and Cyber Monday as one of the best to secure travel discounts during the holidays.
According to the travel app Hopper, Tuesday, Dec. 3, will be the biggest-volume day for airfare and hotel discounts in the post-Thanksgiving shopping period.
The secret to Travel Tuesday is that industry demand is low in late November and early December — a period when most consumers have already booked their holiday travel, but have not yet started planning trips for the coming year.
“Before it even had a name, airlines were already discounting flights on this day,” said Liana Corwin, Hopper’s consumer travel expert. “It’s a really great incentive to get folks thinking about travel.”
Experiences are becoming a soughtafter gift this holiday season, according to the market intelligence firm Mintel, which found in a recent survey that 50 percent of US consumers preferred experiences over tangible gifts, up from 17 percent the year earlier.
But travel experiences at bucket-list destinations can be pricey, so big discounts can be meaningful.
Hopper, using algorithms processing trillions of data points to make personalized travel recommendations, says its users saved up to 70 percent on such bookings in 2018. This year, Hopper said Travel Tuesday will offer twice as many deals as on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Deals can be had directly from airlines, hotels, cruise lines and through travel services like Hopper.
Travel experts warn consumers not to get too wrapped up. If you shop on Travel Tuesday, they say, go in prepared: set a budget, set up price alerts, scour flight deal blogs and sites and social media — and do your research.
“From previous years, for international travel, Travel Tuesday compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday was actually the most expensive time to book flights,” travel booking company Skyscanner said in a recent blog post. “Cyber Monday was once again the cheapest.”