Best low-fare days and other tips for holiday flight-planning

Airfare sales are coming at us from every which way. Virgin America has fares starting at $159 round-trip (including tax) this month between Los Angeles (LAX) and Seattle (SEA). A United Airlines sale brought up competitive fares to Austin, Texas, and elsewhere, but if you’re headed to New York (JFK) from LAX, try American Airlines, where you can score a return fare of just under $300 this month.

You could compare and contrast deals for hours — and finding bargains does indeed take some research — but we have some tips to help you cut to the chase as you look for deals in this traditionally busy travel season.

I looked at a useful tool of sorts on a United.com promotion page providing a month-at-a-glance fare categories breakdown, by “good,” “better” and “best.” At time of research, according to this breakdown, your lowest fare potential can be found on travel from Dec. 13 through Dec. 19, and on Dec. 24 and 25. It also seems you should avoid travel on Saturday, Dec. 20.

A given at any time of year, the lowest fares will find those who are most flexible, and this holds true this month. “If travelers can fly in advance of Christmas, for example on Dec. 22nd (a Monday, which is a few days before Christmas and an “off” travel day), or if they can fly directly on Christmas Day, there will be more seats available on flights, so they will likely be less expensive,” said Abby Hunt, the public relations manager of Orbitz.com, via an e-mail.

Also, as any frequent online-booking flier knows, sites such as Orbitz and Expedia and some airlines, like American Airlines, offer flexible flight searches, allowing you to easily compare fares among different dates.

One of the great budget-hunting tips in an L.A. Times article earlier this year was the suggestion to take a different air route, perhaps leaving and/or arriving from a smaller airport than you might normally. Additionally, check FlightStats.com to see a full list of airline options available to you on certain routes. For those in need of accommodations, research flight-hotel packages instead of booking each component a la carte, suggested Orbitz’s Hunt.

Let’s hear from you. Do you have any tips to share for finding good prices on flights for the holidays? Have you booked any amazing fares as of yet?

— Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

[Photo credit: Scott Garrett / For the Los Angeles Times ]

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 6:00 am by Susan Derby and is filed under Airline travel, Deals, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.