Gone on the Fourth of July by Fareologist

In anticipation of the upcoming holiday weekend, I thought it’d be useful to take a look at what happened with Fourth of July airfares this year. For most people, it’s probably too late to make air travel plans for this weekend. But what happened this year might provide useful information that we can take advantage of in 2010.

This year, July 4 falls on a Saturday, and last year it was on a Friday. In both 2008 and 2009, Friday is the most common work holiday, which makes Thursday the most popular departure day for long-weekend trips.

I’ve plotted out the average airfare for these Thursday departures for the last two years:

As you can see, throughout the spring the average airfare was approximately $50 to $75 cheaper than it was the year before. 2009 prices finally caught up with 2008's for last-minute travel, when fares for holiday trips can be pretty expensive.

But what if you were able to be a bit flexible with your dates? Here’s the average price over the last three months for Independence Day trips from Seattle to Los Angeles, broken down by trip dates. The departure dates are listed in rows, and the return dates in columns. More expensive trips are shaded in red, and cheaper trips are shaded in green:

While the Friday-to-Sunday long-weekend trip was pretty expensive (as you’d expect), the weeklong Sunday-to-Sunday trip cost even more. As is often the case, you can save on airfare by extending your trip by a couple of days. While it cost $224 on average to return on Sunday, July 5, it was $30 less per ticket to return on Tuesday instead. (Of course, if you have to pay for two extra nights in a hotel, the savings is much less attractive.)

Here’s another example, Atlanta to Miami:

This time, the long-weekend trip is the most expensive, but you can see the same savings if you return on Tuesday. In fact, in both cases it’s clear that Tuesday and Wednesday are among the cheapest days to travel, which is a good general rule for airfares.

Next year (in case you’re thinking that far ahead), July 4 falls on a Sunday, which means the work holiday will be on Monday. And that means that the most expensive long-weekend trip will probably be Friday to Monday. And next year, I predict, being flexible with your dates will save you money! (I feel pretty confident about this prediction.)

I’ll be off grilling on Friday, but I’ll be back with some fresh fareology next week. Have a great Fourth!