If you have to choose between Thanksgiving and Christmas for holiday travel, hear this:

Earlier this week we gathered holiday travel planning tips from a variety of travel industry experts and online travel booking websites. The advice ranged from pointing out the cheapest dates to fly during Thanksgiving and Christmas to the importance of actually getting a seat on a plane, rather than a deal because of shrinking capacity. Today I chatted with Brian Ek, from Priceline’s Ekspert travelblog and he shed even more light on the price of flights this holiday season. If you only have enough money to make one trip home this holiday season, you might want to see how the prices of flying during the Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks differ.

“Average retail fares for Thanksgiving and Christmas travel are currently running about 10% less than they were last year. Thanksgiving fares are averaging about $80 less than Christmas fares. In case you can only go home for one holiday and have to choose, Thanksgiving is the one to pick,” said Ek.

I asked Ek to explain the $80 difference and he said that Priceline takes the average of all airfares booked between July 1-Oct. 1 for travel over the holiday periods. The average price of a flight for Thanksgiving cost $360 while the average cost for a flight for Christmas was $440.

“We strongly advise booking holiday tix the sooner the better. Last year, as you recall, the bottom fell out of the economy right before the holidays. People stopped spending and the airlines had to initiate holiday fare sales. Don’t think you’ll see a repeat this year. If anything, fares are more likely to go up,” Ek added.

Priceline’s Best Days To Fly Calendar goes beyond the average price of a flight to show you exactly what the cost will be from your departure city. To access the calendar, go to the Priceline flight page and look down to the lower left side of the page. Look for the “Best Days to Fly” box and “Shop by Calendar” title. I selected Los Angeles (LAX) as my departure city and Washington D.C. (IAD) as my target city and it returned prices for October, November and December in a calendar format. I found a flight for $349 including taxes Monday to Monday surrounding Thanksgiving. You’ll notice that on some dates the calendar says “Price.” When that happens you must enter the dates and search recent rates. The other prices are there because ”to qualify as a best day to fly, the departure or return date must feature a price that is relatively better than other dates around the same time.”

Will you be choosing one holiday over the other this year?

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Image: Priceline logo; Credit: Courtesy of Priceline.com]

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 9, 2009 at 12:04 pm by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, Fall, News, Tips & Advice, Winter. 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.