Have you made your holiday travel plans yet? If you’re thinking of flying somewhere for Thanksgiving, now’s the time to get shopping!
As we pointed out in our first forecast back in August, holiday fares typically increase as Thanksgiving and Christmas get closer. And this year has looked pretty typical so far. Thanksgiving prices started to rise in mid-September, and have increased further over the past week. Right now, on average, they’re almost 10% above where they were back in August.
Even if you haven’t booked your tickets yet, though, there are still ways you can save. Avoid the popular Wednesday-to-Sunday trip, days on which you’ll also have to pay a holiday surcharge. If you fly Tuesday to Saturday, for example, you’ll save an average of 20%. And if you’re willing to fly on Thanksgiving Day and return on Monday, you’ll save more than 25% on average.
For Christmas, the change hasn’t been as dramatic. Prices are roughly the same as they were back in August. Now is usually the time when Christmas fares begin their upward march, however, and smart travelers have already begun their shopping. Christmas is on a Friday this year, and the most expensive trips are the popular Saturday-to-Sunday trip (if you want to spend lots of time with your friends and family) and Wednesday-to-Sunday trip (if you don’t). Although you can save some money by avoiding these heavily-traveled dates, the price difference isn’t as dramatic as it is for Thanksgiving trips.
If you’re not ready to shop yet, it’s still a good idea to set up a Fare Alert, so you can see the prices every day. Maybe you’ll see a deal you can’t resist!
Got a question? Feel free to leave me a comment on the blog or send me a tweet.
Hi Joel, Your post makes a lot of sense. If Bing Travel says right now that prices are going down some certain dates on the Thanksgiving weekend, should I trust that forecast, or should I trust the idea that fares should be rising as we get closer to the end of November?
Under the price predictor there's a blue link that (depending on the results) will say "See Details" or "Consider Risk" or something similar. If you click on it, it will give you more details of the prediction.
For instance, right now, for SEA-LAX, 11/25 - 11/29, I see $355 and a "WAIT" tip. If I click on the details, it shows me
56% chance of a price drop $30 - $112.
38% chance of a price rise $21 - $64.
The WAIT tip is based on the idea that you have a better chance of saving money by waiting, but as you can see there's also a not-tiny chance you'll pay more.
As you can also see from the price history graph in the details section, when prices do drop, they often don't stay low for very long. This is especially true for the most popular travel dates for holidays.
To sum up, the trend we're seeing is certainly for prices to be rising. Nonetheless, it's likely that we'll see a lot of very brief price drops (and subsequent price rises).
Whether you should try to catch those drops depends on your tolerance for risk (for some people the chance of a big drop outweighs the risk of paying more, for others it doesn't), and the amount of time you're willing to devote to the process (in order to catch a lot of these price drops, you have to be very vigilant and check prices quite often).
Hope that's helpful!
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