The global travel search engine and go-to resource for all travel deals, Skyscanner, has a time-honored tradition of capping off the summer with the highly expected data for the best time to book Thanksgiving travel, and today's the day. Skyscanner collated and analyzed data from its over 90 million monthly users and found that domestic Thanksgiving travel favors last-minute travelers, with some of the best deals to
be found two to three weeks in advance and with savings sometimes as high as 20 percent.
The insights led to a deeper dive into itineraries, length of travel, and how Thanksgiving travelers go about their planning and booking. When looking at the data alone for 2018 domestic travel, Skyscanner found most travelers booked their flights one to two weeks before Thanksgiving.
Skyscanner analyzed the data and found travelers
tend to fit into one of three personas:
- Almost 60 percent of Americans are midweek travelers, choosing to depart on Tuesday or Wednesday and return between Friday and Sunday.
- Approximately 10 percent are week-long travelers and travel weekend to weekend (Saturday/Sunday to the following Saturday/Sunday).
- Nearly 20 percent are same-day travelers, preferring to avoid the airport masses and depart on Thanksgiving Thursday and return between Friday and Sunday.
Skyscanner data found
the amount of people who fly on Thanksgiving day itself was double the size of the week-long Thanksgiving travelers. Regardless of which persona a traveler identifies with or where they plan to enjoy a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, booking at least two weeks in advance
is recommended
in order to find the best prices.
If traveling with most Americans on Tuesday or Wednesday, Skyscanner found the most consistent deals by booking between one month and two weeks in advance. The week-long travelers' time window to find good deals starts from two months in advance
up until two weeks out.
And finally, for those that swear by the Thursday flight - it turns out there is truth to this rumor! On average, these travelers found better deals than the other travelers. Not only that, they also had a longer booking window to score these deals - deals started up to three months in advance, and could still
be found up to two weeks in advance.
To ensure travelers find the best deal to their destination this Thanksgiving, Skyscanner has compiled some helpful tips to make the process easier:
- Set up price alerts for different departure dates, keeping in mind
the majority of Americans will
be flying on Tuesday/Wednesday.
- Set up price alerts in advance, since deals
do occur starting now (Skyscanner data just shows when the deals are consistently available).
- Remember, this is for domestic data only if looking for an international trip during Thanksgiving week, it is always best to book international flights months in advance!
For 2019, deals are already available, but the week of Halloween is a good week to buy based on 2018 data.
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