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 Travel & Outdoors | October 2007 
During the Holidays, Stay Longer, Save on Airfare
 James Gilden - LATimes
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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And for holiday travelers, it's also beginning to look a lot like summer with its high airfares and crowded planes and airports. Only, it'll be colder. And with turkey and mistletoe.
Last year, 1.8 million passengers flew through LAX during the 10-day Thanksgiving holiday period, and 1.75 million flew between Christmas and New Year's Day. Most of those travelers crowded the airport on just a few days right before and after the holidays.
Airport officials are predicting another busy holiday period this year, but it is too soon to know whether it will be busier than last year, said spokeswoman Catherine Alvarado.
If the national stats so far hold true, it will be. The airlines added almost 3% more seats in the first half of 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. But for every extra seat, they filled a few more than they added and are flying at record capacity.
So, holiday travelers can expect higher fares than last year, said Hugh Crean, chief executive of Farecast.com, a website that tries to predict airline pricing.
"What we're seeing for Thanksgiving out of L.A. are fares 4% to 5% higher than last year and 9% to 11% higher for Christmas," based on an analysis for The Times, he said.
Budget-conscious travelers can dodge higher airfares and escape some of the airport crowds and chaos by traveling during off-peak times, he said.
"The key is flexibility around the return" for Thanksgiving, Crean said. If you're willing to come back the Monday after the holiday, you could save about $80. Come back Tuesday and you could save about $150.
Those kinds of savings add up, especially if more than one person is traveling.
Jesse Soll and his girlfriend, Dominique Zarate, of Ventura are traveling to New York for Thanksgiving. He started looking in early August at flights for the weekend before the holiday and returning the Sunday after, but the fares were prohibitive.
A recent search on Orbitz for these dates found an average fare of $598 for seven airlines, with the lowest being $535 on Virgin America. (These fares are for comparison only and may no longer be available.)
When he was more flexible with departure and return dates, he found a $342 fare on Delta by traveling the Sunday red eye before Thanksgiving and returning the Monday after.
A recent search on Orbitz for a Monday-to-Monday itinerary found an average fare for seven airlines of $447, with the lowest at $395 on Delta, a savings of $140 or more.
"It's spending money, money to pay bills," Soll said. "And it was enough time to be home."
And missing a day of work on Monday?
"That's a bonus," he said.
Christmas, which is on a Tuesday this year, is a similar, if slightly more complicated, story. But some days are looking, on average, to be less expensive than others.
"For Christmas, the departure date is key," Crean says.
Leave the Wednesday before and return the day after Christmas and the average fare is $395, according to the Farecast analysis. Travel the weekend before and return the weekend after and the fares cost about $90 more. And, as always, traveling on the holiday itself is the cheapest way to go.
For budget-minded sun seekers, it can pay to look outside the typical Hawaiian holiday. Christmas week is high season in the Aloha State.
"I would suggest that people look beyond the obvious," said Tim Leffel, who wrote the book "The World's Cheapest Destinations" (www.worldscheapestdestinations.com).
His recommendation? Be a contrarian.
"The overriding theme of the contrarian traveler is the idea that you don't go where everybody else is going," he said. "In Cancún or Puerto Vallarta [Mexico], you'll pay the same as you would for Miami."
In Mexico, you'll find the real bargains 20 to 30 miles from the big coastal tourist areas or inland in some of the smaller Spanish colonial towns.
The bottom line: Whether you're flying home for the holidays or going somewhere warm, you can't always get what you want. So fire up your computer or call your travel agent and keep an open mind.
"You've got to be opportunistic and flexible," Crean said about airfares. "More than 50% of price drops last less than 48 hours." |
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