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Tips for planning your holiday travels
With the summer break behind us, now is the time to start planning your holiday travels. FOX 5 I-Team's Dana Fowle offers tips on how to get the best bang for your buck.
ATLANTA - Many area schools are back in session. The summer break is behind us. Is it time to start prepping for winter holiday travel? Yes, it is.
I checked in for advice with the good folks at Scott’s Cheap Flights who track down all the latest flight deals.
"Flights are one of the most unpredictable and difficult things to figure out on a regular basis because flights fluctuate by the day, by the hour sometimes," Willis Orlando of Scott's Cheap Flights to the Fox 5 I-Team. "And most people don’t have the time, the energy, the effort to spend all day searching for cheap flights. But that’s what we do."
Mr. Orlando, a member operations specialist and his team look at about 160 airports in the US alone. This is the kind of thing they find: roundtrip flight from Atlanta to Hong Kong over spring break for $304. A roundtrip flight from Atlanta to Alaska for only $204.
You can also try this deal-finding app called Hopper. Put in your desired destination. The app will highlight the best times to fly. Pick your dates. The Hopper bunny fetches the deal. And you can find what I did, a $190 flight from Atlanta to Vegas in December.
AIRLINE DEALS LIKE LAST HOLIDAY SEASON WON'T BE HERE THIS YEAR
It will drop you notices tracking the price. If it’s lower than this, you’ll hear about it!
Now, what if you can’t find a deal you need to get to, say, St. Louis or Minneapolis to see family this holiday season? Try going on a vacation spot in the off-season, like Venice in winter. When you’re wanting to travel over these peak season dates, flexibility with schedule can get you where you want to go.
"So if you're looking to take a leisure trip over the holidays, consider taking it slightly off the regular season dates. Prices tend to be a lot lower for say, December 22nd or so, and after January 6th," Willis Orlando said.
Don’t expect rock bottom prices even with the Delta variant strain of COVID-19 rising. Sure, things could change, but people are vaccinated and masked.
Look now. Set up alerts. Try flexible dates. Go someplace out of season.
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