KANSAS CITY, Mo -- If you're planning a vacation around the holidays, you should be pricing flights right now.
The NY Times reports holiday airfare is going up every day; not like last year when last-minute travelers found deals galore.
This year there are fewer seats for sale, according to OAG, an aviation-data firm. At Kansas City International, there are 2.8% fewer seats for this Thanksgiving.
"Overall for the top 50 busiest cities there was an average drop in seats of 3.4% with 80,000 fewer seats this year than the day before Thanksgiving last year. Even with these hefty cuts both days show that over 2 million seats will be departing on what is normally the 1st or 2nd busiest travel day of the year (Wednesday before Thanksgiving),"
according to Fare Compare.com.
The
Smarter Travel website reports that holiday airfare may be "ready to spike."
"We've been tracking roughly 50 popular routes for several weeks, and this week it appears a slight majority of Thanksgiving fares are, indeed, up. For example, Chicago/Orlando fares leaving November 23 (+/- one day) and returning November 29 (+/- one day) are up $28. Flights between Tampa and Los Angeles are up $20. But several routes have gone down since last week, including San Francisco/Los Angeles (down $12), Boston/Los Angeles (down $91), and San Jose/Orlando (down $11)," writes
Carl Unger.
Bing Travel has advice about ways to save money.
"Avoid the popular Wednesday-to-Sunday trip, days on which you’ll also have to pay a holiday surcharge. If you fly Tuesday to Saturday, for example, you’ll save an average of 20%. And if you’re willing to fly on Thanksgiving Day and return on Monday, you’ll save more than 25% on average," according to Bing.
