Don't fret - there's help for holiday travel
Do you think holiday travel is miserable? It doesn’t have to be.
Over 71 percent of Americans travel between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and odds are you’ll be one of them. With holiday travel always comes headaches, right? There are huge crowds, and tickets to everywhere cost double what they would normally. Because everyone is travelling on the same day, the travel industry can comfortably raise their prices knowing that you’ll pony up. And so we must partake in the excruciating process of trying to find the cheapest fares possible.
Fortunately, there is a ton of data on holiday travel, and thousands of sites (and columns like this one) that attempt to help you negotiate holiday season with as little cost and stress as possible. It can be a little overwhelming, so let me boil down the advice for you to one simple point: do not travel when everyone else does.
Every year, the big travel companies publish compiled data for when and where Americans go during the holidays. For those serious about avoiding high costs and packed airports, these data reports are a golden manual. If you can be at least a little flexible, you might be surprised what a difference it can make.
For instance, the busiest travel day for Thanksgiving is Nov. 25, and the least busy day is Nov. 30. In order to avoid the dreaded Sunday rush, say you were to instead return on Nov. 30, a Monday. That translates to a 30 percent difference in airfare. Leaving on Tuesday instead of Wednesday increases the savings to 34 percent. That’s a few hundred dollars, and an added bonus of dealing with many fewer travelers. Christmas and New Year’s travel works the same way. Don’t travel on Dec. 23 or Dec. 30, but do travel Dec. 27 and New Year’s Day.
But not every traveler visits family on the holidays, and for those travelers the data offer a unique idea: consider planning your vacation around the spots that are the least expensive during the holidays. This year Orbitz predicts that Texas will be cheapest for Thanksgiving (airfare down 11 percent, hotels down 13 percent), Denver will be cheapest for Christmas (airfare down 7 percent, hotels down 17 percent), and Chicago will be cheapest for New Year’s (airfare down 10 percent, hotels down 9 percent).
If you haven’t decided where to go yet, but want to give your passport a work out, sites like Groupon make booking packaged holiday travel easier. One quick browse down the travel page yields holiday trips to Australia, Jamaica, Budapest, and Greece. If you have a general idea, like “the beach” or “a ski trip,” head over to the new travel website Fareness.com. Simply input your home airport, what month you’d like to go, and for how long. You’ll be provided with a handy chart of the best value vacations.
Overall, steep discounts belong to those who are open to all possibilities. Obviously this plan will not work for everyone due to restrictions from jobs, school, or family obligations. But if you can find room for some flexibility, you may just find room to sit down at the less-crowded airport, or an extra bill in your wallet.
One final note: don’t panic if you haven’t booked your flights yet. The prices are unlikely to skyrocket with the shorter time-frame like most other flights. Years of data has concluded that holiday tickets cost about the same whether you’re booking two months or two weeks in advance.
And just to help you out wherever you’re going, Orbitz is offering a 15 percent discount on participating hotels when you use the code “FEELGOOD” (book by Nov. 29).
Next time: Want to get away during the winter to anywhere warm? Get ready for cheap cruise season.
Julianna Satterly is a Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy graduate who worked as the Editor in Chief of her college newspaper at Washington and Lee University for three years. She’s lived in three states, visited 28 others, and has toured 13 countries. Contact her at juliannasatterly@gmail.com, or on Facebook or Twitter @jsattz.