How to snag the best holiday airfare
Sometimes it pays to wait until the last minute.
When it comes to planning your holiday travel, sooner is better. Or is it?
For example, if you’re flying home for Christmas, you’ll need to book tickets anywhere from 14 to 20 days in advance, in order to find the lowest airfare, according to advance booking data from Expedia. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a low fare for Thanksgiving, you missed your window — it ended Sept. 23. Sorry, flights are now up to 15% more expensive.
This holiday season, timing will be more important than ever. Wait too long and you could be stuck with a higher price. Book too early, and you’ll miss the best rates.
Take Lori Grube, who started planning her Thanksgiving trip to Hawaii a year ago. No kidding.
Grube, a law enforcement dispatcher in Gaines, N.Y., began tracking airfares and researching alternate airports in order to get the best fare to Honolulu. She determined that a 21⁄ hour drive to Toronto could save her a bundle on airfare and that the best airline would be United. She downloaded the airline’s app and checked it obsessively.
“The prices fluctuated quite a bit, and when there was a price I felt was good, my husband didn’t think it was good enough,” she recalls. “So I forged ahead.”
Finally, she booked her tickets nine months before her vacation. Her price for two first-class seats to the Aloha State: $2,258. Not bad.
Here’s why booking early is usually a sound strategy: Airfares are generally headed higher, thanks to rising fuel prices, says Mahmood Khan, who directs Virginia Tech’s hospitality and tourism management program. “Air travel will be costlier, and early reservations are needed,” he says.
Hotels will also offer early discounts, but watch out for “gotchas.” Hotels will offer more pre-payment options, which means that in exchange for a modest discount, your room is totally nonrefundable.
But zigging when everyone else zags can sometimes also pay. An airfare analysis by Yapta.com for USA TODAY found that, on average, air ticket prices sometimes drop closer to the departure date. Its data show that
29% of airlines’ price drops occur 21 days or more in advance, dropping to
16% in the 15- to 21-day advance purchase time frame, followed by an increase to 27% eight to 14 days prior to departure. Then prices drop again within one week of departure, as 29% of airline price decreases happen within this window.
“Most price drops occur between seven days prior to arrival and checkin,” says Yapta spokesman Jeff Pecor.
If you’re reading this story now, you’ve probably missed all the good deals for Thanksgiving, and maybe the rest of the year. Maybe it’s time to call the travel industry’s bluff: Stay flexible and wait until almost the last minute. What have you got to lose?