The best and worst days to travel around Christmas and New Year'sThanksgiving is behind us, and the next hectic holiday travel season is already looming. But flying around Christmas doesn’t have to be as stressful and expensive as it seems. If you haven’t already checked it out, I’ve updated our popular post on how to find cheap Christmas flights, which I hope will be of some help.

Today, I’m adding some great data from Kayak to the mix. The 2018 Kayak Holiday Travel Hacker identifies the cheapest 2017 holiday flight bookings based on how far in advance they were made and the actual departure/return dates. The idea is that the patterns might help people booking flights in 2018. Here’s a sample of the findings:

  • The cheapest domestic roundtrip Christmastime flights were booked four weeks in advance
  • The cheapest international roundtrip Christmastime flights were booked five weeks in advance
  • The cheapest roundtrip domestic Christmastime flights were those departing on December 25 (Christmas Day) and returning December 27
  • The cheapest roundtrip international Christmastime flights were those departing on December 24 and returning December 27

As you can see, the information is meant to guide rather than be applied exactly (three days is a short international trip). But it’s good information, and it’s available for flights around New Year’s Day, as well. Check out the full post with the data visualized, and please share any other holiday travel resources below!

 

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1 Comment On "The Best and Worst Days to Travel Around Christmas and New Year's"
  1. JohnC|

    Tickets to London have been extremely expensive this year for Christmas, most from LAX to LHR have been around $2,000. Two years ago, I was able to get tickets for about $400. This year I used miles to snag several 65,000 mile round trip tickets non-stop LAX-LHR which was I thought was a good deal.

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