We spoke to a travel expert to reveal the optimal time to book your holiday trip. Hint: You’re running out of time.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: Let’s turn to the travel season. October gets billed as the best time of the year to book holiday travel. Is that true? And what kind of deals should we be looking for?
CLINT HENDERSON: OK, so it is true. You the loose rules are basically you should plan on booking your Thanksgiving flights by Halloween. And you should also be booking your Christmas flights not long after So early into the November, so around the election. So the thing is you want to set flight alert deals like I was talking about with Google. Google has flight alerts you can set you want to be monitoring prices for the months leading up to when to book. But the best time to book, especially for domestic, is around Halloween for the holidays.
CONWAY GITTENS: Now, does that still apply because there was this period after the pandemic where everybody was going everywhere and you couldn’t get a seat. And that’s why airlines expanded so much capacity. Are we returning to a more normal kind of trend in 2024?
CLINT HENDERSON: Yeah, everything’s back to normal. So business travel has mostly returned that insane level of demand. We saw post-covid, or at least the worst of the pandemic that has faded. So a lot of that pent up demand has been eased. So we’re returning to more traditional higher levels, though, because leisure travel is higher than it was pre-pandemic, and I don’t expect it will actually lessen at all. So I think we’re still in peak travel. But I will say when it comes to prices, the same rules apply, even when it was the most insane time right out of the pandemic.
CONWAY GITTENS: So what are your most important tips to getting the best deal for holiday travel?
CLINT HENDERSON: So I would say start monitoring your flights right now and book it if you haven’t, because time is ticking away. The closer we get to the holiday, the more expensive the flights will be. And that’s true no matter when you’re booking. It’s always the closest to the day you want to travel. When prices are going to spike the most. I will say if you see a deal, though, jump on it. Don’t wait until a perfect time. If you see a deal, that’s when you want to jump on it. But do set Google flight alerts. You want to really monitor prices. And if you see a deal, jump on it.
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