We’re at T-minus “sooner than you think” until Thanksgiving, which means it’s time to start considering your holiday travel plans — your flights, anyway.
In fact, you might want to consider buying your Christmas-week tickets ASAP — they’re cheapest during the first week of October, after which the fares rise precipitously. By contrast, Thanksgiving fares remain fairly static through October, and only start to really climb in early November.
That’s just one of the interesting (and valuable) insights in a new report prepared by Hopper, one of our favorite fare-searching apps. A few more:
Expect to pay more for less, or at least roughly the same, as the holidays get closer. Domestic round-trip Thanksgiving tickets are expected to climb from an average of $288 to $325, while Christmas tickets will only add $2 to go from $366 to $368.
The most expensive Thanksgiving-week days to travel are the ones you’ll want to: the Wednesday before and the Sunday after.
The cheapest Christmas-time travel would necessitate a departure on December 16; the cheapest return would be on January 4.
Thanksgiving tickets will go up $10 a day in the first couple weeks of Thanksgiving.
If you refrain from returning from your Thanksgiving travel until Wednesday November 29, you could save a whopping $161.
Good luck, gents. Godspeed.
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