Our 2024 travel trends — right in time for the holidays
With the holidays quickly approaching in the U.S., now is a great time to start thinking about your travel plans. To help you get started, we’re sharing some of the latest travel trends and new insights on the best time to book your flights, both during the holidays and other busy times throughout the year.
For starters, we took a look at the top destinations for Thanksgiving and Christmas:
Trending holiday destinations for 2024
Compared to the December holidays, there are more domestic locations represented on the Thanksgiving list, including Chicago, Phoenix and Dallas-Fort Worth. For Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it appears that people are more interested in traveling abroad to places like Manila, Sydney, Mexico City or Madrid.
2024 insights on booking the cheapest flights
Flight prices are constantly changing — even day to day — so it’s hard to know when prices will be lowest to book an upcoming trip. Usually, it’s smart to book your travel far in advance, especially if you need to be on a specific flight.
But if your number one priority is getting cheap airfare, you can look at some historical patterns to guide you along the way. When you search on Google Flights for a specific destination and dates of travel, we’ll show you the cheapest time to book, so you can decide whether it’s better to wait for lower prices or book ASAP.
If you want a general sense of the best time to book across different scenarios, here’s a look at our latest insights for U.S. travelers, based on four years of aggregated Google Flights data — plus a few more trends that can help you find cheaper airfare.1
Domestic flights: For trips within the U.S., average prices have been lowest 38 days before departure. The historical low price range is 21-52 days before takeoff.
International flights: If you’re traveling abroad, you should probably book as early as you can. While average prices have been lowest 101 days before departure, the historical low price range is anytime 50 days or more before takeoff. In other words, for international travel from the U.S., average prices don’t meaningfully drop anytime before departure, but they usually do start to rise within 50 days of the flight itself.
Thanksgiving: For domestic trips around Thanksgiving, prices have been lowest 45 days before departure, and the low price range is 26-59 days out. So if you’re flying right before or after the holiday, the best time to book cheap flights is early October.
Christmas: Plan a bit further ahead if you’re traveling domestically for Christmas. Prices have been lowest 58 days before departure, and the low price range is 36-72 days out — so the best time to book cheap Christmas flights is the back half of October.
Spring break: For domestic trips in March or April, the lowest prices have been 44 days before departure, and the low price range is 33-59 days out.
Summer vacation: If you’re traveling domestically in July or August, there might be some last-minute bargains available. Prices have been lowest 21 days before departure, and the low price range is 13-43 days out.
Trips to Europe: Trips to Europe from the U.S. tend to be cheapest 94 days before departure. But you shouldn’t wait for prices to drop — the historical low price range is 50 days or more before takeoff (same as the general advice for all international travel).
Trips to Mexico or the Caribbean: These trips are an exception to the broader international trend. Prices for traveling from the U.S. to Mexico or the Caribbean have been lowest 44 days before departure, and the low price range is 26-68 days out.
Looking for more money-saving tips for booking flights? If you’re curious about the best day of the week to book, the answer is that there’s not much benefit to buying your tickets on a certain day of the week. While Tuesday has historically been the cheapest day to book, it’s only 1.3% cheaper than the most expensive day, Sunday.
And looking at historical prices, the cheapest days of the week to fly are Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, which have been 13% cheaper than flying on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. If you exclude international trips, the potential savings jump to 20%.
And last but certainly not least (well, maybe least in terms of price!), if you’re willing to opt for a layover versus nonstop flight, our data shows that you can probably get a better deal: On average, nonstops have been 25% more expensive than flights with stops. Now whether you want to spend more time in transit — that’s up to you!
