10 Ways to Find Cheap December Flights

If you’re traveling this Christmas and haven’t purchased your tickets yet, what are you thinking? There’s not a lot of time before Santa comes sliding down your chimney. But don’t worry, I’m here to make sure you are with your loved ones or some where away from home without breaking the bank. Here are my 10 travel hacks for finding cheap December flights. RELATED: Avoid Holiday Travel Headaches With These 10 Tips and Tricks

1. Be flexible
Without a doubt, the key to finding cheap December flights is to be flexible (this applies to any day you’re traveling, really). If you can’t be flexible, then you aren’t going to get a great deal unless you get lucky. It’s not that difficult to figure out that the most expensive time to fly is when everyone else is, too. For example, Christmas this year is on Monday, December 25 and I bet you want to leave the Friday (December 22) and return on Monday, January 1. Am I right?

Well, that’s not going to happen and if you ran an airline, you wouldn’t discount fares that day either, now would you? To prove my point, I just ran a search on Google Flights (screenshot above) for round-trip non-stop flights from New York to Miami for the holidays. You can see that leaving on Friday and returning on Monday are the most expensive days to fly.

Solution: Travel three days earlier on the outbound and return and the price will drop by more than 50%. If you want to save even more money, push the dates even more.

You can usually save even more by flying on Christmas Eve or early Christmas Day and returning on New Year’s Eve or early on New Years Day.

2. Consider the time of day
Since everyone wants to leave after work or when school gets out, don’t enter in a specific time when searching for a flight. Generally, the most expensive times to fly are peak business travel hours (8am to 10am and 5pm to 7pm). Cheaper seats tend to depart early in the morning (5am to 7am), midday (noon) or late in the evening (after 8pm).

Pro Tip: By leaving early in the morning, you have the best chance of not getting delayed.

3. Alternate airports
If you’re looking to score cheap December flights, another money-saving trick is to not only be flexible with dates and times, but also with airports, too. For example, rather than flying out of LaGuardia or Miami when going to south Florida, check out Newark (EWR) and/or Fort Lauderdale airport (FLL), which is 25 miles north and usually much cheaper.

FYI: Almost all major U.S. cities have alternate airports and I created this page show you the actual driving miles.

4. Stay away from the low-cost carriers and Basic Economy fares
When you do a flight search, don’t just grab the cheapest fare you see, especially from a low-cost carrier (LCC) because it could end up costing you much more than you think. Allegiant, Spirit and Frontier are just a few that are notorious for offering ridiculously low fares and then hitting you up for everything from assigned seats, checked baggage and even carry-on luggage. The worst part is that now the legacy airlines like American, Delta and United don’t want to lose out so they’re offering the same kind of fares. So make sure you read the fine print on your fare before buying—even from the mainline carriers. Related: Don’t Fly Frontier or Spirit Airlines Unless You Know This.

5. Choose Southwest Airlines if you’re checking bags
Southwest was the original low-cost carrier so it’s ironic that they’re the only one that doesn’t charge for checked bags. They offer the first and second checked bag for free, which most airlines would charge an extra $160 for on a roundtrip ticket. If you’re planning on checking bags and don’t have elite status or an airline branded credit card where one of the perks is free baggage, then check to see if Southwest Airlines is flying your desired route. Remember: Their fares don’t show up in any search engine except their own so you need to log on to Southwest.com.

6. Sign up for fare alerts
If you don’t want to constantly have to check airfares manually (as I like to do for some insane reason), then sign up for fare alerts. Many sites offer this free service and I wrote about them here.

7. Hold your airfares for free for 24 hours
Many consumers in the US don’t realize that the Department of Transportation (DOT) has stated that all US and foreign carriers have to allow consumers the ability “to hold a reservation at the quoted fare for 24 hours without payment or allow a reservation to be cancelled within 24 hours without penalty.” See here for the DOT’s full rule (PDF). However, if you’re booking a ticket with fewer than seven days before you fly, this rule doesn’t apply.

Note: American Airlines is the only airline that I’m aware of that allows consumers to hold a reservation without a credit card for 24 hours, making it much easier to cancel. However, since American offers the hold option, if you make a reservation with them, you can’t cancel without a fee.

8. Use frequent flier miles or credit card points
It’s almost impossible to use your airline frequent flier miles during the holidays unless you are flexible with dates or are willing to use double or triple the usual amount. If you don’t want to cut your trip short, then consider using credit card points.

9. Consult a travel agent
As you can see, bargain hunting can be a time-consuming process but it can pay off big time, especially if you are traveling with multiple people. If you don’t want to spend the time and energy doing all the legwork, then call a travel agent and pay their fee, which can be $25 or more. A good agent will find you the same deals as you can find online and sometimes even better deals if they are clever with the ticketing (usually for international flights). To give you an example, once I was flying from London to Bangkok and everything I was finding online was over $1,000. I called my travel agent and he found a flight on Etihad through Abu Dhabi for $550. It was well worth the $25 fee.

10. Hidden city trick
The airlines do not like the hidden city trick even though you are beating them at their own game. With that said it’s against airline policy so you didn’t learn it from me! Here’s how the hidden city trick works.

I hope this guide helps you find cheap flights and more importantly, allows you to spend the holidays with the ones you love.

KEEP READING:

–8 Ways To Make Sure An Airline Doesn’t Lose Your Bag … And That You Don’t Get Robbed or Stalked
–The Trick For Getting Airport Luggage Carts for Free
–Airline Lost Your Luggage? Do This If You Want to Get Compensated
–Why Frequent Fliers Use Apple AirTags or Samsung SmartTags When They Travel
–An Airline Executive’s Number One Tip for Avoiding Lost Luggage When You Fly

Want more travel news, tips and deals? Sign up to Johnny Jet’s free newsletter and check out these popular posts: The Travel Gadget Flight Attendants Never Leave Home Without and 12 Ways to Save Money on Baggage Fees. Follow Johnny Jet on MSN, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube for all of my travel posts.