If you haven’t booked your Thanksgiving or Christmas flights home yet, the Vacationer suggests you do so soon.
“With travel rapidly recovering, the 2022 holiday season is looking to be extremely busy, with many people flying for the first time in a few years,” the travel website wrote.
Because of this, it wrote, you should plan your travel as soon as possible — if you haven’t already. The Vacationer suggests booking domestic flights one to three months in advance and international flights two to eight months early.
If you don’t have tickets for Thanksgiving travel yet, you should do so by Halloween at the latest, the Vacationer recommends. For Christmas, you should purchase tickets no later than Thanksgiving.
But what days should you buy those plane tickets for?
Because Thanksgiving is on Thursday every year, it’s a bit easier to detect travel patterns. The Vacationer states you want to leave home on Monday or Tuesday before the holiday, or on Thanksgiving Day itself. Just try to avoid Wednesday — tickets cost more, airports are crowded and the experience can be stressful.
The same scene will be repeated the Sunday after Thanksgiving for those returning home in time for work on Monday. If possible, you should fly back on Black Friday (while everyone is shopping), or wait until Monday or Tuesday to travel.
Predicting the best and worst times to travel around Christmas can be trickier, because it’s on a different day of the week each year. The holiday is on a Sunday this year, and the website suggests leaving home as early in the week as possible. Although the best date would be Sunday, Dec. 18, Monday and Tuesday are also good days. If you don’t mind flying on the actual holiday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day tickets should be less expensive and airports should be less crowded. That leaves Thursday and Friday as the worst travel days before the holiday.
When flying home, try to avoid Monday and Tuesday, both of which will be busy and crowded. If possible, wait until Thursday to fly.
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