You'd better buy airfare early this holiday season
The recession’s end should mean only good things.
A smidgen of job security might return, that pension hopefully comes trickling back and – maybe, just maybe – employers will start to hire people again.
But believe it or not, there are some downsides in the return to normal.
For one, you might’ve noticed that airfares over the past year or so have been marginally decent.
Last holiday season, you could procrastinate a bit and still find deals at the last minute. Airlines, ill-prepared for the steep fallout in travel, were forced to offer bargains to fill up empty planes.
Now, though? Your luck is about to change.
As the New York Times reports, waiting even a few days booking your holiday flight this year could result in a severe hit on your wallet.
“Travelers should be shopping now,” Joel Grus, who tracks airfares at Bing Travel, told the paper. “If a price seems good to them, they should get it.”
In the last week alone, fares for the busy U.S. Thanksgiving travel season rose an impressive 6%, with the most popular there-and-back itineraries going up by 10%.
While numbers for the Canadian holiday period aren’t available quite yet, they might not be much different.
According to the Times, airlines again have the big advantage in the “endless game of cat-and-mouse with travelers.” Because of the downturn, they have been grounding planes, therefore offering fewer seats to sell and giving themselves the power to set ridiculous prices.
Indeed, the number of domestic seats for sale is down 5% this month compared to October of 2008. And those numbers are down 21% from October of 2000.
What’s that mean?
“Essentially, that’s creating a seller’s market,” said one source, noting that if you want to travel on the cheap this holiday season, you’d better buy early and be flexible.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: M Porter | Oct 23, 2021 2:09:32 AM
You know with out having a medical degree it could be blames on all the additives and preservitives put in out foods that hungry American and other people of the world. and their desire to make the big bucks off the little people.All these additives kill off most of our the good our bodies get from food. We are poisoning ourselves just for conveiinence.Food producers and makers need to make the products without them but where is the profit in that. Kill all the fat people with all this crap they put in foods.Our bodies were not made to with stand this on slot of the poisons.No wonder we have cancers and forgetful minds. when will it stop and have safe food out their to buy and have confidence in these people to not poison us with it.