By: John Rauser - Farecast Fareologist
I know that it’s still Summer, but here at Farecast we’re already thinking about Thanksgiving, and you should be too. To arm you with some facts that you can use while planning your trip, I’m going to review what we saw for Thanksgiving 2006.
First, the short version. Here’s the bare minimum that you need to know:
- Being flexible on your dates of travel makes a big difference. Flying out on Wednesday and returning Sunday was by far the most expensive itinerary. Choosing a return date other than Sunday can save you $60-$100.
- Prices for Thanksgiving trips were volatile, moving up and down frequently last year. If you watched prices carefully, and bought when prices dropped, you could save anywhere from $20 to $100.
- Since trips with a Sunday return are in such high demand, inexpensive seats fill up quickly. Though we did see some price drops for these trips in late August last year, it is probably best to buy these tickets as early as possible.
- Itineraries returning on any day other than Sunday are different. If you see a price you like right now, certainly go ahead and buy your tickets. If the price is uncomfortably high, or goes up while you’re still planning your trip, don’t panic. Last year we saw price decreases for many destinations in late-August though mid-September. However, don’t wait too long; prices really started to tick up after mid-September last year.
Here’s the long version for you folks that like to see all the details:
When To Fly
The first thing to think about is your dates of travel. Choosing wisely here can really make a big difference. The table below shows last year’s average domestic ticket price for different combinations of departure and return date.
As you might expect, the Wednesday-Sunday itinerary was by far the most expensive. What may not be immediately obvious is that avoiding the Sunday return was far more important than choosing a different departure date. Returning early a day earlier on Saturday, or a day later on Monday was about $60 cheaper on average. Returning on Tuesday saved you more like $100. In contrast, adjusting your departure date to Monday changed the average fare by only $30-40.
The dollar amounts I’m talking about above are averages across all 2,000 city pairs that Farecast tracks daily. Some cities have a relatively small disparity between the most and least expensive fares. Phoenix to Dallas is one example, where the less popular itineraries could be had for $290 and the coveted Wednesday to Sunday itinerary was only 33% more expensive at $385. More extreme was Boston to New Orleans, where the most expensive Thanksgiving itinerary for $530, 150% more than the least expensive at $210. In general, you’ll pay dearly for the Wednesday to Sunday trip to warmer locales, especially those which are popular vacation spots year round like Hawaii and Florida.
When To Buy
Having chosen your travel dates, you are now faced with the problem of buying that ticket for the lowest price. Should you book as early as possible to get the best price? Not necessarily. Thanksgiving airfares go up and down just like airfares during any other part of the year, and buying on the right day can result in savings from $20 to over $100.
So if there’s $20-$100 per ticket on the table, you might be inclined to wait a little while to see if prices drop. But if you wait too long, prices might rise for good, costing you more than if you had bought immediately. Deciding whether to wait for a better price or not is purely personal. If you value convenience, or don’t like risk it may be worth it to just buy right away. If you do decide to wait, you need to know when to buy your ticket even if the price hasn’t yet dropped (or worse, has gone up).
This is where it gets a bit complicated, so I’ll start with an example. Suppose the price for your trip starts out at $275, and that this is the lowest it ever goes. Then, on September 15, the price jumps to $325 and never comes back down. After September 15th it was “too late” to get the best price. I found this “too late” date for every Thanksgiving itinerary Farecast tracked last year and averaged them to find the odds that it was too late each day before Thanksgiving day. It turns out that there are two cases to consider, either you’re trying to buy a ticket with a Sunday return, or you’re not. The graph below shows the probability that you’ve waited too long to buy your ticket at a price within $20 of the best possible price for each of these cases.
You can see that the Sunday return is in such high demand that the risk of waiting too long rises very quickly. Given this, I certainly can’t encourage waiting very long if you’re keen to return on Sunday. We did see some price decreases for Sunday returns during the last week of August and first week of September last year, so you might get lucky, but be aware that you’re running a risk. Farecast has a great feature that tells you when the number of seats left at a certain price is running low, keep an eye on this and think hard about buying when availability starts to dwindle.
For itineraries that avoid the Sunday return, the situation is different. These less popular trips saw some significant sales through mid-September last year, and the risk of waiting until mid-September was relatively low. Again, if you’ve got a risk-averse personality, or if you find watching prices to be a hassle, it might be best to just buy the ticket as soon as possible and get it over with. But if don’t mind a little risk, you might be able to save by watching prices over the next few weeks, ready to buy when the price drops.