Whether it's booking a long distance flight for the upcoming
holidays or a weekend getaway. Many of us just
get overwhelmed when we're planning a vacation. You can
say that again. Well, Pauline Frommer, editorial
director from Fromer is here to help us destress with
our holiday travel with some great tips to make it
all a bit easier. All right. So let's
start with certain days of the week. I always
hear that it would be cheaper if we book our
flights on certain days. There just was a study
that came out looking at billions of data points and
they found that statistically if you book your ticket on
a Sunday, you spend 6% less domestically and 13%
less on international travel. And when I say book
, I'm not talking about flying. I'm talking about
when you put the money down. Ok. Now
we should try to book early for our trips.
Is that the best way to get like any kind
of a deal? Not next. If you're flying
domestically 28 days before travel is the sweet spot.
You book farther out than that. The airlines know
they've got you, they're going to charge you top
dollar last minute. Also you get charged, top
dollar for international travel. The sweet spot is between
2 to 4 months in advance. So again,
there's a difference and what about the actual day that
we're flying? Especially around the holidays? That can
always be. So especially the Saturday before I like
, everyone wants to go that Friday or Saturday before
everybody wants to go on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and
return on the Sunday. So avoid those dates.
It's ugly. It may upset your family. But
if you can fly on the holiday itself, you'll
save the most money. But who wants to do
that? The morning, six o'clock flight get there
in time. You have half corners for Thanksgiving.
No problem. You just went away right now.
Talk about hotels. When should we be booking those
? It depends on whether you're going to a resort
destination or to an urban destination. If you're going
to a city one week before travel is usually the
sweet spot. If that makes you nervous, get
a reservation, you can cancel and then search in
the days before you're getting to the destination for resorts
. The sweet spot is three months out. So
if you're going to Hawaii the to be in Florida
, that's when you wanna book those hotels. So
you know, a lot of times it's that last
minute trip that gets you. Because how do you
save when you're booking that very last minute? Well
, you can save on last minute travel if you're
going to a city, uh, because hoteliers get
nervous if that bed is not slept in, they've
lost money. And so they will often really discount
at the last minute in urban destinations. All right
, let's talk about road trips, road trips.
I love road trips. And if you want to
save on gas, AAA has your back. They
have a, uh, a thing called the fuel
cost calculator. You put in the year and the
make of your car you put in your destinations that
you're going to and they shoot back how much it's
going to cost you in fuel. And that way
, you know. Well, maybe it won't be
so bad. I can splurge on a hotel or
, uh, oh, I'm gonna spend a hell
of a lot on fuel. I'd better go cheap
on my restaurants on my hotels, et cetera.
Pauline. Great advice. Thank you so much.
And happy traveling. Happy traveling.