Cheap Flights For Thanksgiving & Christmas - FareCompare's 2009 Cheap Flight Travel Guide

Nov. 13, 2009 - PRLog -- DALLAS, TX – FareCompare.com (http://www.farecompare.com), an airfare comparison shopping site, tracks airfare to help shoppers find the cheapest days and times to fly, every day of the year. FareCompare tracks airfare data year-round and issues the following consumer advisory regarding prices for air travel for the holiday season: As airlines attempt to eke out additional revenue from passengers, prices are steadily going up, while seat capacity is going down, plus additional fees on peak travel days will make it more expensive to fly this season.

Shopping for airfare this holiday season is particularly precarious for shoppers. Prices are slowly climbing, with the average cheapest published airfare for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving creeping up in markets such as Atlanta, where prices are up 11%, seats have been cut back by nearly 3%. Additionally, new travel surcharges of up to $20 each way on all legacy airlines for peak travel days, are making it more expensive for families to fly this holiday season. These peak travel surcharges occur for Thanksgiving on November 29 and 30 and December 18, 19, 23, 26, 27 for Christmas.

"FareCompare's easy to use ‘When-to-Fly’ calendars pinpoint the cheapest days and times to fly, at a glance. And our ‘How-to-Shop Holiday Travel Guide 2009’ is a consumer guide to navigating new fees and surcharges that airlines have begun levying this holiday," says FareCompare CEO Rick Seaney. "The airlines are certainly piling it on, but travelers need not suffer. If your dates are flexible, you can get home for the holidays, for less."

This year, FareCompare again analyzed the top 20 busiest cities and noted an average drop of 3.04% seats, meaning there are 42,000 fewer seats on the day before Thanksgiving 2009 compared to 2008.
The hardest hit cities this year include Orlando with an 8.55% decline, followed by Las Vegas with an 8.23% decline

How can fliers save on flights this holiday season? FareCompare shows you how:

• FareCompare's How-to-Shop for Cheap Flights Holiday Travel Guide 2009 – FareCompare CEO Rick Seaney provides tips for finding cheap holiday flights; learn how to save big on Thanksgiving and Christmas airfares, and more.

• Holiday Travel When-to-Fly Calendars - FareCompare highlights the best and worst days to fly this holiday. FareCompare's When-to-Fly calendars make finding the cheapest days to fly for Thanksgiving and Christmas, quick and easy.

• Finding Cheap Tickets for Thanksgiving – Best kept secret: flying on a holiday will often yield huge savings. Savvy travelers know that airfare for Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day is often much cheaper than other days of the holiday season. More of these money-saving, insider travel tips are available at FareCompare. See also FareCompare’s interactive Charts of Cheapest Average Published Airfares for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

• Leave Early for Cheap Tickets, arrive in time for Thanksgiving dinner – FareCompare advises shoppers that the cheapest time of the day to fly is usually early in the morning. So save again by flying early on Thanksgiving Day and you’ll still arrive in plenty of time for Thanksgiving dinner!

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FareCompare.com is an independent airfare shopping site with the all the tools necessary to help consumers find cheap flights quickly, easily, and find them first. FareCompare is not the typical airfare “meta search” comparison shopping site.

Every day, FareCompare's sophisticated software processes feeds from more than 500 airlines - totaling more than 270,000 destinations worldwide - making FareCompare a comprehensive one-stop airfare shopping experience. Plus, FareCompare’s proprietary software and robust processing power delivers airfare prices in real-time. And that's important because the best fares disappear quickly, but with real-time technology, shoppers learn about the best deals first – so they can rely on getting those cheap tickets first, every time. Learn more about locating best airfare deals at http://www.farecompare.com