Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Paul Nelson, KSL NewsradioIf it would save you nearly $1,000 in travel costs, would you postpone Christmas?
That's what some travelers say they're willing to do.
Could Santa reschedule?
No, really. Is there any chance you could push Christmas back a little to save a lot of money on traveling? I asked this question to people at Salt Lake International Airport.
"If you had to postpone Christmas, do you think you could?"
One man replied, "Oh, gee, it's real tough. We've got seven children and 10 grandbabies, and they're all part of California and Utah and Oregon, so it's tough to put that off."
"Could you do it?"
"No," another woman answered.
It's no secret and no surprise to these people that air fares seem to always go up specifically for the holidays. As a matter of fact, these people plan for it.
One man said, "They do gouge a little bit. It's sad that way."
One woman said, "I know it all goes up when everybody travels at the same time, they jack the prices up."
This has some travel analysts saying you may want to do your holiday travel after the holidays are done.
Bestfares.com CEO Tom Parsons said, "It might be to your best interest to volunteer to stay in the office during the Christmas and New Year's holidays and take your time off after the New Year."
Parsons says if you have to travel during the holidays, there are specific travel days you want to avoid, like the Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
"The Sunday after Thanksgiving can be as much as three or four times what the sale fare is today," Parsons said.
That's just within the continental U.S. Parsons says if you plan to go to what they call a "sun and fun" destination like Hawaii or Cancun, the prices get ridiculous. He says before the holidays, a trip to Cancun cost around $400.
"You go the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and come back the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that fare jacks up to $1,451. That's a thousand dollars per person difference," he explained.
The good news is not all the holiday travel deals are gone just yet. He says airlines expected higher sales through the summer, and that just didn't happen. So, they're trying to make up those sales now.
"As we get closer and closer to Thanksgiving, and closer and closer to the Christmas and New Year's holidays, I think the airlines may tighten up the dollars and cents and make it even more expensive to us if we don't act now," he said.
Parsons says if you can't postpone Christmas, maybe you can bump it up to the beginning of December. He says travel fares during that time are very cheap right now.
