Thanksgiving Weekend Flights (vacation, airlines, airports, worst)

[caco54]

Looking to fly my daughter, husband and two kids home for Thanksgiving. Sacramento, CA to Philly and looking at $2,600. Should I wait, book it or tell her to take the grey dog.

[flyonpa]

Thanksgiving is the most air traveled day/time of the year, The prices won't go down.

Look at southwest, they are not in the fare sreach site, Also look at other cities other than PHL and SMF .

BWI?

SFO OAK Reno?

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by caco54

Looking to fly my daughter, husband and two kids home for Thanksgiving. Sacramento, CA to Philly and looking at $2,600. Should I wait, book it or tell her to take the grey dog.

When booking Thanksgiving fares, you hold your nose and pay what it takes as they will NEVER be discounted. In the old days, you could fly out on Thanksgiving Day and save $$$s but that really is no longer the case.

Now that I am retired, I fly out the Tuesday BEFORE the week of Thanksgiving and fly back the Tuesday AFTER Thanksgiving and get really good fares.

I looked at alternative airports and I could not find much under $2700.

You will probably do better around Christmas as the flight volume is spread over a lot more days.

[shellymdnv]

Flexibility will be key. You definitely need to expand the cities that you are looking to flying in an out of. For the Philly area I would suggest all 3 DC area airports as well as the New York City area airports, you may even want to consider a smaller airport like Atlantic City. Also you should look for one way fares on different airlines, you may find that the two one ways may be cheaper than a round trip especially if you're willing to fly in and out of different airports. For example fly into Baltimore and out of Philly.

Also it seems that if they are considering the bus, it would seem that they are flexible enough to fly a little outside of the worst days to fly.

[StealthRabbit]

Consider booking different carriers, you could probably find a way to combine Frontier and SWA. I booked a Thansgiving timeframe 2500 mile SWA route last week for under $300.

Sunday is a good day to book. monday bring higher prices.

[Jkgourmet]

Originally Posted by shellymdnv

Flexibility will be key. You definitely need to expand the cities that you are looking to flying in an out of. For the Philly area I would suggest all 3 DC area airports as well as the New York City area airports, you may even want to consider a smaller airport like Atlantic City. Also you should look for one way fares on different airlines, you may find that the two one ways may be cheaper than a round trip especially if you're willing to fly in and out of different airports. For example fly into Baltimore and out of Philly.

Also it seems that if they are considering the bus, it would seem that they are flexible enough to fly a little outside of the worst days to fly.

Great advice on the one way ticket suggestio . I've found that kayak.com does a great job at finding those. But getting FOUR tickets may prove challenging.

The BUS from Philly to California? With two kids?

Just for giggles, I looked it up. It's 2 days and 18 hours each way on the bus. Round trip is LONGER than the Wed-Sun Thanksgiving weekend!

Seriously, drop this idea. Holiday travel is expensive and stressful. Plan a trip during a different school break when mom and dad can get a week vacation from work. Summertime is good. Thanksgivingis just a day on the calendar. It's NOT magical. Most countries don't even celebrate it (I've visited some that don't even know what it is!) You can buy turkey, cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes year round.