If you’re like most Americans, you plan your big vacation for the summer months, when the weather most places is optimal! With that in mind, we’ve been crunching the numbers over here to hook you up with the absolutely best days to fly.
CheapAir.com’s done the analysis on hundreds of thousands of summer airfares and we have come up with some pretty interesting takeaways. First of all, know that summer fares are overall priced higher than typical fares in the spring, fall or winter (with the exception of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays). So, keep realistic expectations about reasonable fares for this popular time to fly.
You can find discounts if you know where to look. To begin with, if you can swing it, avoiding flights on the weekend will save you some dough. The cheapest days of the week to fly are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You’ll save $62 on average if you avoid Sundays (the most expensive day to fly) and instead jet off mid-week. That may not seem like a huge amount, but for a family of 4 it adds up to a savings of $248 total. That’s the cost of two night’s budget hotel room or a couple of upscale dinners on your trip. Heck, that’ll cover your food budget for the week if you’re keeping it simple.
It’s also a great idea to avoid the month of July if budget is a consideration since July is historically the most expensive summer month to fly. The later you get in the summer, the better the airfare and accommodation prices for most destinations (excluding Labor Day weekend, of course). Of course, you have to look at this measurement as a moving target. The closer we get to the summer (and further into the summer months), the more expensive those relatively inexpensive airfares in late August and September will become. As a rule of thumb: start shopping for your summer flights as soon as you have the money and can pull the trigger on a good fare.
Please scoot on over to our Summer Flights page for more great tips and a calendar of the summer months. This will give you a breakdown day by day of the cheapest and most expensive days to fly from June 1 to the end of summer. Let’s get those summer plans in motion!
We want to book a flight to Shannon Ireland in late-August. We can get a decent deal on a nonstop from Chicago in United. But if we price the ticket by flying first out of Madison, WI, the price of the ticket more than doubles! What’s going on? How is this possible? Normally adding on a leg between Madison and Chicago adds roughly ~$200 per ticket. The only alternative I can see is to buy a separate round trip ticket to Chicago.
Your plan is a good one (buy separate tickets). Just make sure you allow ample time to collect and recheck bags in Chicago. I understand your frustration, though this summer Chicago does have incredible prices to Ireland. Smaller airports do tend to be much more expensive than flying out of a top 10 market like ORD, New York or Los Angeles.
Be ultra stealth when travelling in asia pacific. Especially guam. There are tons of scams . use cash. Lots of in house credit card fraud. Its almost as bad as miami. Id say just abput as bad or even wprse than las vegas.
Beg to differ regarding Guam. Have friends and relatives who travel there all the time and never have problems. What do you base your comments on?