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Thought you couldn’t travel during the holidays? You might want to think again.
In the past 24 hours, FareCompare.com’s proprietary airfare tracking system (which processes tens of thousands of airfares daily from over 500 airlines) noted the largest domestic airfare sale activity – at any time in the past year.
While most of the ticket pricing activity this year has been on the increase side, recently we’ve seen a spate of targeted airfare sales launched early in the week and expiring on Fridays – BUT – this new activity – again, over the past 24-hours – has been 10-fold compared to that recent weekly sale activity.
And the best part is, most of this NEW sale activity is targeted specifically at HOLIDAY travelers.
This is great news for consumers, many of whom have given up on holiday travel this year.
Keep reading – I name specific airlines, and specific amounts you can save…
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Northwest was the instigator Tuesday night as they fired out a wide reaching domestic holiday airfare sale hours before their official merger announcement with Delta. The other major airlines have spent the day hurriedly matching and extending this sale.
Take for example Delta Air Lines with the only non-stop between Atlanta and Nashville; the cheapest airline ticket for purchase on Monday was just under $500 roundtrip, but with Delta matching Northwest’s sale, that same seat can be had for $238 roundtrip (Mon 24-Nov returning Friday 28-Nov).
In years past we have tracked holiday airfare sales, but they typically where initiated less than two weeks before the holidays, many times at the last minute.
With unprecedented domestic seat cutbacks this year (211,000 few seats available each day domestically by Christmas), we were not optimistic about holiday sales – it appears however that the airlines have traded the year long oil crisis for a global economic crisis. Demand began to wither at the end of the summer under pressure from higher airfares/fees and more recently by consumers pulling back as they worry about the ramifications of the downturn in the U.S. economy.
We expect to see more matching activity Thursday and urge consumers to take a second look at holiday airline tickets- they may be pleasantly surprised. The cheapest days to travel around the holidays are Tuesday, Wednesday and the day of the holiday – and steer clear of Sunday and Monday after the holiday on returns.
Rick,
I concur that this week has been unprecedented in airfare deals. I’m exhausted from posting all of the great Hawaii airfare sales, the combined quantity and quality of which we haven’t seen in a very long time.
Many of the Hawaii deals are valid over Thanksgiving, and I checked and found availability therefor. That too is most unusual.
Aloha,
Jeff
I got this info today,
As from November 1st 2008 Air France and KLM will apply a new refund policy for non-refundable fares where surcharges with code YR/YQ (fuel surcharges) will not be refunded. This will apply for 074 / 057 tickets issued as of November 1st 2008 on AF/KL/NW/DL/KQ coded flights.
Below overview is applicable for tickets issued as of November 1st 2008:
The following refund applies for taxes and surcharges:
On non-refundable tickets which are
- fully unused: refund on airport taxes/security surcharge
- partially used: refund on not used airport taxes/security surcharge
On refundable tickets which are
- fully unused: refund on airport taxes/security surcharge/fuel surcharges
- partially used: refund on not used airport taxes/security surcharge/fuel surcharge
Third party taxes such as airport and security taxes will as always be collected and refunded for non-refundable and refundable tickets (no changes).//
So keep in mind that non-ref tickets still cost to XXX
I read about your perfect storm. How would this affect our travel plans? Hubby and I are going on a 14 day escorted tour to Europe fr. Apr. 30-May 14, 2009. Travel agents have air and land package w/ prices that fluctuate daily due to air. One will take $500 if we pay airfare in full by Dec. 15 (currently his airfare $1930 AUS-Lon, CDG-Aus). Should we:- pay airfare now or
-wait til Jan-Feb of next year eventhough we won’t be eligible for the $500 off
-pay airfare bet. NOv and Dec.
What about travel to Asia in March? How far in advance should we wait or do you really think airfare would go down first part of nex year?
Hi Reyla,
You shouldn’t be paying over $1,100rt right now for your trip next spring next spring (AUS-LHR-CDG-AUS).
If oil stays at current levels next year (mid $60 barrel) fuel surcharges will come down (even though base fares will probably go up a bit at the same time).
The bottom line is that if you want to lock in at $1050rt for that European spring trip — go ahead but please don’t pay more than that.
I am a gambler by nature with a pretty good intuiton and I personally would wait and keep an eye on it (using our alerts) until early next year — that itinerary should be able to had for $800rt or better next year assuming oil is stable and the economy is still bumpy and the dollar remains strong — those assumptions are very volatile however, which is why I wouldn’t be wide-eyed if you locked in