Cheap Fares - Travel Deals

For most people, Christmas is all about family and spending quality time with people you love (and may not get to see much during the rest of the year). It’s a pity, then, that getting home for the holidays without spending a fortune can be such a royal pain in the you-know-what.

Finding cheap Christmas airfare is definitely a challenge, as anyone who’s started looking can attest to. You plug in your travel dates and get hit with huge ticket prices. You think you can use the old trick of shifting your trip by one or two days in either direction and you still run into the same high prices. It’s frustrating. Oh, and don’t count on using those precious frequent flyer miles you’ve accumulated, either, because the Christmas holidays are typically part of an airline’s blackout dates.

But even though you may not find a super bargain-basement price on an airline ticket over Christmas, there are still some things you can do to avoid paying more than you need to for your flight.

Thanksgiving is all about family, feasting, and friends - and, unfortunately, ferociously long lines at the airport. It’s notoriously the busiest travel time in the United States, which can lead to increased delays, more flight cancellations, and higher ticket prices. It’s hard to avoid some of the troubles that can come along if you have to travel over Thanksgiving, but there are definitely some things within your control - including traveling on days that aren’t as nightmarishly busy.

In recent articles on this site we’ve explored some of the aspects that make traveling at Thanksgiving so bad, and what you can do to make them less bad. Here’s a round-up of what we discovered, with links to each article for more in-depth information.

One of the things you’ll read over and over again when you’re looking for the best ways to find travel bargains is that being flexible is key. For the most part, that means being willing (and able) to move your trip by a day or two in either direction from your chosen travel date, or taking an early flight instead of one that lets you sleep in. But even beyond that, being flexible with the airports you fly in and out of can help you expand your ability to find travel deals, too.

Keep in mind that the big hub airport in your area may be the one that most often has the best deals, simply because it’s got the most traffic coming in and going out and therefore airlines are more likely to have empty seats they want to sell cheap. But sometimes the smaller secondary or even tertiary airports in a region will have deals the big hubs won’t - if a discount carrier only flies to the smaller airport and not the bigger one, or if the smaller airport charges the airlines lower fees to operate there, for instance. So even if you end up flying in and out of the bigger hubs most of the time, it never hurts to check the alternate airports nearby.

Traveling at Thanksgiving can be one of the most stressful things you’ll do all year, but if you end up paying too much for your ticket that’s just adding insult to injury. There’s not necessarily much you can do to make the airport less crowded or the weather any more pleasant for flying, but there’s definitely something you can do to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible on your ticket.

A few somethings, in fact.

In this article we’ll look at the best ways to find cheap airfare for Thanksgiving travel, some of which are tips that will apply to non-holiday travel and some of which really are targeted to these overly busy times at the airport. For starters, you should pat yourself on the back for taking the first step in getting a deal on Thanksgiving airfare - you’re doing the research. Well done.

Now take that forward momentum further with these tips, too.

Usually about 11am on Tuesday I start thinking about the upcoming weekend, while I watch the seconds tick by at work. Sometimes I even think about being in another location. You know, dreaming of a weekend getaway.

If you are like me, or even if you aren’t remotely similar to me, you might find Frontier Airlines Weekend Web Fares program to be useful for last minute travel deals. Every week the airline offers up new specials for travel during the upcoming weekend. Surprise your family with a visit, catch up with some friends across the country or simply get away from the every day grind with a spontaneous trip.

Go ahead and check out their deals, while the work clock ticks in your head.