Thanksgiving and Christmas airfares are expected to be among the priciest of the year. According to Hopper, the average domestic round-trip airfare for Thanksgiving is now $281, up 25% from last year. Christmas airfare will average $435 round-trip, which is 55% more than what tickets cost during the 2021 holiday season.
And prices are increasing at a pace of approximately 4% every week; so, if you wait a week to book a flight, you can expect the price to increase.
The optimal time to purchase holiday flights was two months ago, or four months before departure. However, there are still a number of excellent holiday offers available around the United States and the Caribbean, especially if you want to avoid relatives.
Need a flight to St. Thomas? South Florida and Los Angeles tickets to the U.S. Virgin Islands are as little as $224 (or you can redeem 13,000 Delta miles). Or, you may fly Delta from New York to St. Thomas for $224 or 13,000 miles, or from Los Angeles for $337. Or, a flight from Miami to St. Croix on American Airlines will cost $310.
But cruise lines provide the largest Christmas travel deals. Approximately 1,500 distinct cruise itineraries, including Thanksgiving and Christmas cruises, are less than $100 per night on average. On some cruise lines, like as Carnival, a four-night cruise immediately following Thanksgiving cost an average of $26 per night, while a three-night cruise cost $33 per night.
A two-person accommodation on a Carnival cruise to the Bahamas from Port Canaveral in Florida from November 28 to December 2 costs an average of $104 per person, or $26 per day. After taxes, fees, and port charges, the cruise costs approximately $507.
A 10-day cruise during the Thanksgiving holiday to Jamaica, Aruba, Curacao, and the Dominican Republic with an open bar costs $63 per night on Norwegian.
Other fantastic November cruise discounts include five nights on Holland America out of Vancouver for approximately $36 per day and six nights on MSC Cruises out of Barcelona for approximately $50 per day. Look for flash bargains with equally steep reductions from cruise operators.
Europe, where the U.S. dollar is nearly equivalent to the British pound and the euro, is also a good destination to get vacation savings, especially if you’re flexible with your travel dates. If you depart Newark for Barcelona before Thanksgiving and return immediately after, United will charge you only $535. Or, fly SAS from the United States to Europe in November and December for as little as $653 in premium economy to cities like Copenhagen, Oslo, Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, and Brussels.
And if you are able to wait until January, fares plummet: United offers flights from New York to Lisbon for two weeks for only $390.
If you are unwilling to dispense with the turkey entirely, consider carving it a week after Thanksgiving. In the airline industry, this week is known as the “dead week” because passengers are recovering from their vacations, with round-trip domestic rates averaging $78.
The other strategy to holiday travel is to avoid the worst Wednesday of the year: the day before Thanksgiving, whose yearly traffic nightmare inspired the classic 1987 film “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” For the lowest prices, depart the Thursday before Thanksgiving and return the Friday after the holiday. While the rest of your relatives are caught in Black Friday traffic at the mall, you’re already on your way home, with the entire weekend and cheaper flights to look forward to.
And keep an eye out for flash bargains from airlines such as Jet Blue and Southwest, with flights starting as little as $29. Despite the fact that flash deals are prevalent today and often last for only 36 hours, you can often book travel through the end of February 2023. Southwest’s winter sale, for example, ended on October 6; nevertheless, another flash sale will certainly arise early next week.