The Travel Detective

The Travel Detective on Thanksgiving: How to Save Money and Sanity

Locations in this article:  London, England Paris, France

Screen shot 2011-11-11 at 11.34.10 AMThe Travel Detective isn’t headed home for the Thanksgiving holidays, find out why he’s looking overseas and why the airlines are making it in your best interest to do the same.

Let’s call Thanksgiving what it is: an obligatory dysfunctional family get together. You’re forced to confront your demented uncle. Your crazy aunt that gets to push all your emotional buttons. And the worst part? You have to spend an arm and a leg paying for it.

What if you didn’t have to do? Airlines are basically begging you not to go home this Thanksgiving due to their bilateral agreements. Bilateral agreements between countries make it so airlines are penalized if they don’t fly X number of seats per day or per week or per month on a route. So what does that mean? More empty seats overseas than domestically at this time of the year.

So guess what? Let the crazy relatives stay at home, do the smart thing. Consider that the average fare will be more than $600 for domestic travel over the holidays. Do you know that there are airfare sales to London for less than $600? If you want to go from New York to Des Moines, it’s going to cost you more than $600. Instead, think about New York to Paris for under $600. European bargains are out there right now.

Now if you absolutely have to go home for the holidays, here’s my hand dandy way to save money, save your sanity, save stress and basically have the weekend come back to you. It’s very simple. You book the very first flight of the day on Thanksgiving morning. Leave at 5:45 am or 6 am. You’ll get to where you need to go and have time to carve the turkey and be antagonized by your relatives. And then, stay overnight just one night so on Friday morning, a day that absolutely no one flies, you fly home while everybody else is going to the mall. You save money, you satisfy your relative obligations and you’re home for the holidays. Your home.

For more of ways to save this Thanksgiving, check out:

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio