NORWALK, Conn., Dec. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- After a short-lived dip in airfares for Christmas and the winter holidays, priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) reported that the average retail holiday airfare is now $473, or 14% higher than at this time last year. That percentage is based on ticket sales for the last month.
The recent spike is in sharp contrast with the way average winter holiday airfares had been trending earlier. In October, priceline.com reported that the average winter holiday airfare was $475, or 1% higher than fares for the same period a year ago. In November, the average fare dropped to $451, which was still a modest 3% above 2010.
"We believed that, eventually, the 4th quarter capacity cutbacks made by several of the country's largest airlines would be reflected in higher holiday fares," said priceline.com's in-house Travel Ekspert Brian Ek. "That trend should continue now that we are inside the 21-day advance-purchase window when fares typically begin to move up."
Ek continued, "Holiday travelers can still find lower fares by carefully selecting off-peak travel days, which are displayed on priceline.com's free Best Days To Fly travel calendar http://pcln.com/bestdays. Flexible travelers can also save by using priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® airline ticketing service http://www.priceline.com/flights, which still has some tickets available for holiday travel."
According to Priceline's Best Days To Fly Calendar for the winter holidays:
- The most affordable days to fly over the Christmas holiday are December 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25 and 31.
About The Priceline Group
The Priceline Group (Nasdaq: PCLN) is a leader in global online hotel reservations, with over 200,000 participating hotels worldwide. The Group is composed of four primary brands – Booking.com, priceline.com, Agoda.com and TravelJigsaw – and several ancillary brands. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in over 140 countries in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa.
Booking.com is the number one online hotel reservation service in the world, offering over 170,000 hotels (as of November 7, 2011), and is available in 41 languages. More recent hotel counts are available on the Booking.com website. Priceline.com gives leisure travelers multiple ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available. Agoda.com is an Asia-based online hotel reservation service that is available in 37 languages. TravelJigsaw is a multinational car hire service, offering its reservation services in over 4,000 locations. Customer support is provided in 29 languages.
SOURCE Priceline.com
WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?
Newsrooms &
Influencers
Digital Media
Outlets
Journalists
Opted In
Share this article