<p>Is is too late for affordable airfares? Meaning, should I just bite the bullet now or MAYBE the prices might go down so I should wait? Bidding on PRICELINE has not been my friend with this.</p>
<p>I bought two weeks ago, after watching them for several weeks. (I tried priceline, too, to no avail.) The only trend I noticed was that they seemed to drop slightly on Tuesdays, so you might want to hold off for two days. Check out [KAYAK</a> - Cheap Flights, Hotels, Airline Tickets, Cheap Tickets, Cheap Travel Deals - Compare Hundreds of Travel Sites At Once](<a href=“http://www.kayak.com%5DKAYAK”>http://www.kayak.com). They give you their prediction on whether to buy or wait. Plus you can sign up for a daily alert, where they e-mail you rates for your itinerary every day.</p>
<p>Agree with the Tuesday option. Plus my son said something about using chrome stealth mode (?? I don’t know what that is) because airlines will raise price if you check the same options. Don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised either.
If you buy southwest and they go cheaper you can get a credit for difference, if that helps at all.</p>
<p>I have always used the Tuesday option. HOWEVER, this year I saw a price drop on a Wednesday. This was for two big market cities. Still significantly more than usual, but for Thanksgiving, I’ll take it.</p>
<p>Kayak, southwest (I think) and some other sites offer notification services for flights. They’ll send you email with the prices. </p>
<p>In general Thanksgiving prices do not change much other than getting higher as you get closer to the Holiday. In fact I purchased last week because I had heard a report that said Thanksgiving airfares tend to go up around the middle of October and will stay there or get higher as you get closer to Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Problem is everyone travels on Wednesday and Sunday. Wish these schools would forget about fall breaks in October and just give a few extra days at Thanksgiving instead. Might help to ease up on the cost (and stress) of traveling.</p>
<p>Make sure that you get the “flash sale” mails from the airlines you use- D was able to save a hundred dollars on her Thanksgiving booking (SW Airlines) that way and the same on her Christmas flights. Those credits take care of her flights into next year!</p>
<p>I never see much of a drop on the T-giving fares – they know you don’t have a lot of leeway in your schedule and a lot of people want to fly then. It just seems like they go higher the longer I wait every year. I just booked to go see D2 for T-giving instead of having her come home. It is just me and the dog at home, and the weather is better in her part of the country. 
We have booked a nice hotel near the coast, found a good restaurant for T-giving dinner and made a reservation, and plan to just relax for a few days. </p>
<p>Can’t pin her down on final exams before winter term and when she has to be back for spring term (some funky departmental thing might be happening a few days before classes start, but she hasn’t found out the details). I am getting antsy, would like to be watching fares, but can’t get the details yet to do it…</p>
<p>I think the best flight times and low prices have already gone. We booked months ago because Thanksgiving is a lock on days. DD has classes Wednesday afternoon so she is coming in Thanksgiving morning.</p>
<p>We use Kayak for daily flight alerts. For Winter Break got DS1 booked already but waiting for better prices to book DS2 and DD.</p>
<p>I agree. The “good” prices–which mostly weren’t great–are long gone. From now through about Jan. 3, the best you can hope for is “less bad” prices.</p>
<p>I feel like the luckiest mom; the worm and his g/f flying in for Thanukkah this year. I know it is a sacrifice for her not to be with her family, but Wed night she’ll experience Hannukah with many little ones. Now I need to find 8 gifts for her and him. When my mom was alive, she’d be supplying many of these.Of course, some can be duds.</p>
<p>Back on topic. DS booked early Sept., and still 2x as much as usual.</p>
<p>Booked 9/21 and got RT from Boston to Sacramento for $376 including tax. Thought that was a decent price.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving can be tough, with so many students (and other travelers) wanting flights on Wednes and Sunday. </p>
<p>We are lucky that DS has the whole week off. He’ll fly back from CO to Boston late Sat night on a redeye. He had done it before and does not mind. It’s a 4hr direct flight which lands in Logan around 5am ET on Sunday.</p>
<p>Maybe this is the place to gripe about colleges who do not at least give students Wednesday off of Thanksgiving week. Any college with a national student body really should do this. It is awful for your student to have to take a red-eye home to make it for the holiday family celebration.</p>
<p>I agree, intparent. My son’s big state U, with 26% OOS students, gives them Wed. as a travel day. It’s saving us at least 25% on airfare.</p>
<p>Hmmm…Thanukkah…learned a new word!</p>
<p>I paid more than last year for both Thanksgiving and Christmas airfare. Both were booked as early as D knew her schedules. I book direct flights which are about $100 more than if I let D have one stop, but with probable weather issues, short vacations, and low capacity generally, I am willing to pay for direct. </p>
<p>I am praying younger sibling will select a school we can drive to!</p>
<p>You know what bugs me. When I’ve booked airfare based on when the school has their break and then all of my kids classes are cancelled. I’ve booked a late flight on Wednesday because kid has classes and then all their Wednesday classes are cancelled. But we never knew until right before thanksgiving what was cancelled and what wasn’t. </p>
<p>One year my S had a test that went until 4pm the day before break. While it is definitely the professor had the right he had a hard time finding a ride home as most professors cancelled classes that day.</p>
<p>D only came home for thanksgiving 2 out of her 4 years. It got so expensive and so hard as there is no direct flight to us. I thought my heart would break the first year but now I’m used to it. She goes to her boyfriends as they are within driving distance.</p>
<p>H had booked S’s flights for thanksgiving a long time ago, but somehow forgot to book D’s flights. In his defense, S’s dates/times are well known ahead of time while D’s are usually more flexible. When I looked for flights for D, it was easily 400+ for Cleveland-Boston. Southwest had cheaper flights headed to Akron, OH - so I booked one of those, thinking she would take a bus from Akron to Cleveland. But kept looking. A week or two after that, great flights opened up on United (using frequent flyer miles). I was able to get her round-trip tickets for just 20K miles and the timings were so convenient. Ended up changing her Southwest reservation to December instead!</p>
<p>My advice - keep looking, if possible, look for alternate routes/airports. Have a backup reservation on an airline like Southwest that lets you change without any added fees. Another interesting note - direct flights from Manchester NH to Cleveland were over 200$, but I could book a flight from Manchester to Pittsburgh via Cleveland for 80$. So, get creative :)</p>