(NewsNation) — Americans will have to travel with a mask a little while longer. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced this week it will extend the travel mask mandate to May 3 as it monitors an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

This update comes after two years of COVID fatigue, many passengers were hoping the mandate would drop sooner rather than later. Travel experts say it’s also caused others to become unruly in the air, more than 1,100 incidents were reported last year.

“It’s sad that we have people conducting themselves that way when travel should be fun. That should be family-oriented and people should want to get to their destination safely,” said Paula Twidale, Sr. Vice President of Travel at AAA.

However, getting to the destination may be harder with expensive airfare costs, hotels and fuel.

Clint Henderson, Senior News Editor at The Points Guy recommends going where the deals are.

“Subscribe to a site like The Points Guy, where we post deals every day,” Henderson said on “Morning in America.” “If you have points and miles, use them now because with prices so high you’re getting more per dollar for those points plus those fares are refundable,”

Another challenge for airlines is staffing shortages. Companies still say they don’t have enough pilots or flight attendants to staff their planes.

“We are recognizing that a lot of airlines and industry tourism industry folks have staffing shortages, and that creates a little bit of chaos when we have flight delays,” Twidale said.

Some of those delays can have a trickle down effect.

“I would have called it bad luck if it were one flight or one airport, but to have three different flights, three different airports have significant problems five different times with little communication; it got more frustrating than I was hoping for,” said Southwest Airlines customer Mike Thompson.

A recent AAA survey shows even with travel concern, 52% of Americans are taking a vacation this summer and 42% of travelers say higher gas prices and inflation won’t get in their way.

AAA says all these challenges will last through the late summer. They say the best time to avoid delays is when you travel in the morning. The Association also said it’s not a good idea to wait for a better deal since prices will only go up in the coming weeks.