Introducing Travel Deal Tuesday -- Best Day to Shop for Flights

Summary

• If you're hoping to score a travel bargain next week, the best time to shop isn't on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. You're most likely to find a flight deal on what we're calling Travel Deal Tuesday.

• We analyzed historical flight pricing data and found that fare sale activity significantly spikes on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

• Last year, we observed more than double the normal fare sale activity on Travel Deal Tuesday. In 2015, we saw fare sale activity spike by 6X the normal volume.

• The airlines offer major discounts because travel demand tends to die down following Thanksgiving. Most travelers have already booked their holiday airfare, but haven't started planning their winter getaways yet.

• Instead of searching throughout the day, the easiest way to score a deal is to download the Hopper app and set up a Flex Watch (open this link on your phone to try it). When you set a Flex Watch, you can list cities or regions you're interested in and Hopper will monitor deals 24/7 and alert you when there's a breaking fare sale.

Travel Deal Tuesday

If you're hoping to score a travel bargain next week, the best time to shop isn't on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. You're most likely to find a flight deal on what we're calling Travel Deal Tuesday.

We collect 10 to 15 billion airfare price quotes every day (300 billion a month) and have built a huge historical archive of several trillion prices from over the past several years. We analyzed our historical flight pricing data and found that fare sale activity significantly spikes on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Figure 1: Fare Sale Activity around Thanksgiving 2016

Last year, we observed more than double the normal fare sale activity on Travel Deal Tuesday. In 2015, we saw fare sale activity spike by 6X the normal volume.

The airlines offer major discounts because travel demand tends to die down following Thanksgiving. Most travelers have already booked their holiday airfare, but haven't started planning their winter getaways yet.

Tips & Tricks For Scoring Flight Deals

This Travel Deal Tuesday, make sure you're prepared to score the best fares with Hopper's Flex Watch (open this link on your phone to try it).

Flex Watch takes all the work out of finding the best flight deals. On average, you'll save over 40% using Flex Watch -- but on Travel Deal Tuesday, you can expect to see even better savings.

Here's how it works:

1. Specify your level of flexibility. Which month or range of months are you available? And what's your ideal length of trip? For example, you can say that you want to take a trip this winter for 7 to 10 days.

2. Search and set a Flex Watch for the destinations you're interested in. You can be as general or specific as you want -- i.e. continents, countries, states, etc.

3. Swipe left and right to review destination suggestions along with data-driven advice about which destinations are currently cheapest and which destinations Hopper predicts will drop in price in the future.

4. Sit back, relax, and Hopper will send you a push notification about an unbeatable flight deal for a trip that the Bunny thinks would be perfect for you.

When is the best time to score a deal? The following data visualization demonstrates how Hopper detects fare sales and alerts users in real-time. As you can see fare sale activity begins ramping up around 6:30 a.m. ET and peaks around 9:30 a.m. ET. However, the fare sales continue throughout the day which is why the best strategy is to invest in a price monitoring tool like Hopper.

Fare Sale Destinations

Hopper predicts future flight prices with 95% accuracy. Here some fare sales we're predicting will be available. These are US average deal prices, so make sure you set up a Flex Watch in the Hopper app to get alerted when prices to these destinations drop for your city.