Thanksgiving Airfare: Every Day You Wait Is An Extra $5
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- While Thanksgiving is still more than a month away, travel experts said you should've started solidifying your travel plans -- yesterday.
Travel websites predict the average cost for a round-trip ticket this year will be $415.
That's a jump of nearly 7 percent from last year.
But if you play the game right, there's ways to avoid paying more.
We went to theplanerules.com -- an informational site with policy and fare breakdowns -- and asked website founder and local airline expert Terry Trippler to weigh in.
"Old-fashioned economics 101 -- more people are traveling, the airlines do not have a problem getting seats, so naturally, they're not going to have sales," he said. "The airlines this year have cut back on capacity. They've pretty well got this supply and demand thing figured out. So that's why we're seeing airfares up."
His best advice: Buy right now or you'll be paying $5 more each day you wait.
The most expensive days to fly are the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then the Sunday and Monday afterward.
The less expensive days are Thanksgiving itself, and the Monday and Tuesday before.
Lengthy flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to, say, Florida are going to be about $550. Intermediate flights, from MSP to New York will be about $375, and expect to pay about $200 to get to Chicago.
