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Do airlines charge you more if you book a trip around Christmas for a trip that is happening in, say, august?

I am currently looking for tickets and the price seems to have gone up quite a bit in the last few days, thought that might be very subjective.

I can find lots of information for flights taking place around Christmas, but none about booking around Christmas.

Edit upon request: Is the very same flight more expensive when bought around Christmas as opposed to the beginning of January or December.

Edit regarding the duplicate question: I fail to see how that answers my question. I'm looking for something like Willeke mentioned in their comment

Just before Christmas it is rather likely that a lot of people buy tickets to give under the tree, so it is not unlikely that prices go up at the end of December.

Just maybe backed up with some data, ideally.

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  • That's a big vague as pricing depends on a lot of factors, can you narrow it down a little ?
    – blackbird
    Dec 22, 2015 at 18:12
  • Prices go up when demand rises and supply does not. Mostly this is a good description of Christmas, but some routes are actually cheaper on Christmas day (the aircraft still have to be positioned). Dec 22, 2015 at 18:27
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    @TimLymington The question is asking about buying the tickets around Christmas, not travelling around Christmas. Dec 22, 2015 at 19:42
  • Just before Christmas it is rather likely that a lot of people buy tickets to give under the tree, so it is not unlikely that prices go up at the end of December. I do not expect them to go down later though.
    – Willeke
    Dec 22, 2015 at 20:28
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    This does not look like a duplicate: the question is whether buying tickets for other times of the year is a bad idea around Christmas. Dec 23, 2015 at 7:14

3 Answers 3

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According to Cheapair.com's analysis of 1.5 billion domestic airfares over almost 5 million trips the answer is no, it is not more expensive to buy at Christmas simply because it is Christmas.

The price fluctuates considerably with a sweet spot of cheap stability seen "one to four months out".

You may well have seen the price increase, but given the degree of change they have observed this is a normal part of the process and is not associated with the time of year.

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It is always better to try book flight tickets in low peak times and out of season. Buying tickets to fly over Christmas will always be costly as there is a high demand with people flying all over the world to visit family and go on holiday.

While it is not common across the board, sometimes some airlines will charge more when flights are booked over the Christmas season (even when the flights themselves are outside of the Christmas season) due to the high volume of people also making bookings at this time.

A better time to make bookings would be in early January, as many airlines (and other companies) offer special discounts at this time to encourage spending after the Christmas rush.

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It is pretty expensive to book flights right around Christmas. The reason is simple: supply and demand. Many people want to go out of town or visit family, so naturally, the price goes up. If you want to give someone plane tickets, a good idea would be to buy them in November.

Sorry I couldn't give any examples, but once I had the data, it would already be too late for you to use. I will add the data when it becomes available.

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    Again, the OP is not asking about buying tickets for Christmas, he's asking about buying later tickets during Christmas. Dec 31, 2015 at 2:39
  • @jpatokal Yes, and I put down info about that too.
    – Elliot A.
    Dec 31, 2015 at 13:14
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    Err, I'm not seeing any such info...? Dec 31, 2015 at 20:37
  • @jpatokal I did say that if you want to give airplane tickets, you should buy them around November, because at Christmas the prices would be more expensive. I answered both things, read more then 2 words before downvoting.
    – Elliot A.
    Jan 4, 2016 at 13:59

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