CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — Renowned travel expert Peter Greenberg stopped by “Morning in America” Friday to chat with Adrienne Bankert about how to manage holiday travel (and save money) with travel increasing and costs going right along with it.
Airlines are expanding flight schedules, and while some like American Airlines still may have hurdles ahead because of employee vaccine mandates, it looks like this will be much closer to a traditional holiday travel season than we’ve seen recently.
Greenberg said foreign travel to and through the U.S. is up 600-700%, with restrictions on vaccinated foreign visitors expected to lift in early to mid-November. He said holiday hotel rates are averaging $570/night, up from $330/night in 2019.
Greenberg’s best advice is to invent your own holidays. For many years, he’s given advice that the best times to travel are the two dead weeks: One after Thanksgiving and one immediately following New Year’s Day. With so many of us working remotely or making our living with freelance work, it’s far easier to shift holiday travel schedules to times when most people are done traveling.
He advises carving the turkey a week after Thanksgiving and maybe even opening holiday presents as a family after New Year’s, when you can all afford to go somewhere nice (and warm) and save money rather than spending three times the money and possibly ending up somewhere you didn’t really want to go, but could afford.