Ho-Ho-Hope You’re Booking Your Holiday Flights Soon!

Estimated read time 4 min read

Cheers! The holiday season is just around the corner and while you may be dreaming of sipping gingerbread lattes, getting cozy by the fire, decorating your Christmas tree and playing Mariah Carey's “All I Want for Christmas” on repeat without shame, you should really be making your travel plans instead.

This new batch of booking data from Expedia has some statistics that are making us reach for the bottle of wine a little earlier than usual today.

Like the fact that 21 million Americans are exected to fly from October through December. Eek! Not surprisingly, half of all air tickets for the Christmas holiday season are booked between October and November. Which means booking your flight right now is going to be pretty expensive. 

Expedia's reports says that Thanksgiving flight fares are 17 percent higher, averaging $467 this year compared with $400 last year. Christmare fares have also increased but only slightly, from $482 last year to $493 this year. Still, that's a hefty ticket fare. 

So are there any ways to get a good deal? Yes and no. Below are some tips from Expedia and from Trips + Giggles that will save you significant amounts of money. But airlines are also VERY AWARE of the money that the holiday season brings in so you'll always pay more than you'd like.

EXPEDIA'S HOLIDAY BOOKING TIPS

Expedia recommends the following tips to save money on your travel bookings (the implied #1 tip being, obviously, book with them)*:

Consider neighboring airports. For example: LA to JFK is extremely expensive route  but LA to LaGuardia Airport is slightly cheaper. 

Be flexible with your travel dates. The most expensive day to travel is December 21. But the closer you get to Christmas, the cheaper the fares. 

Book air fare + a hotel. Expedia offers many airfare and hotel bundles which can save you way more than doing the flight and hotel separately. You lose a little bit of control in your hotel selection and your cancellation policy but the savings are for real.

TRIPS + GIGGLES HOLIDAY BOOKING TIPS

Trips + Giggles just went through the complicated Thanksgiving travel booking process ourselves and we managed to save about $1,000 on cross-country airfare for four people on Virgin America with these tips:

Saturday flights: This day tends to be cheaper in general so we booked the Saturday before Thanksgiving with one-fourth of our crew returning the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the other three people returning a week after that.

Stay Longer: Staying longer meant getting a cheaper return flight. This works well when you're staying longer with family but not when you have to shell out for a hotel room or when you have limited vacation days from work. So we realize this is not always an option.

Sign up for the airline's credit card: This saved us $50 off one round-trip ticket and gave us some bonus Elevate points. There is a $49 annual fee but we decided the points we will earn, the free checked bags, and other perks will more than make up for that. See more on Virgin America Visa Signature Card here.**

Drain Points: We paid for one round-trip ticket with Elevate points. It never feels good to drain your points but this was worth it. If you're looking for ways to build up points with an airline or hotel loyalty program, we highly recommend the Mommy Points blog. There's so much good information on there. But remember, don't spend more money than you should just so you can get some extra points. Ultimately, it's not worth it. 

GOT YOUR OWN HOLIDAY TRAVEL BOOKING TIPS TO SHARE? Drop them in comments below!

*No, Expedia did not pay us or comp us to mention them here. 

**Ditto for Virgin America.

Juliana https://tripsandgiggles.com

Juliana is the founder and editor of Trips + Giggles. She has three children and lives in Los Angeles.

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