This Week Is the Best Week to Purchase Memorial Day Weekend Flights

With the summer holiday season ahead, the team at Hipmunk has used its mountains of flight booking data to map the best times to book travel on the holiday weekends ahead. First up is the weekend of Memorial Day (abbreviated as “MDW” below), which this year is Monday, May 27. As written on the Hipmunk blog, “accommodations prices for MDW soar: at a median booking price of $193, hotels are 28 percent pricier than usual; meanwhile, vacation rentals jump a whopping 98 percent with a median booking price of $181. Another reason to get a jump on those accommodations reservations: the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend had more vacation rental bookings than any other day last year.”

So assuming you haven’t booked already, what’s the best time to book Memorial Day weekend flights? It’s this week! According to the post, you should “purchase flights the fourth week of April for up to 13 percent savings” on Memorial Day travel. Here’s a chart of average flight costs per day in the run-up to Memorial Day, courtesy of Hipmunk:

Hipmunk also notes that you shouldn’t “fly out the Friday before the holiday” as “it’s the most-booked departure date for all three summertime holidays—and the most expensive (by $100 or more).”

And if you’ve already made your Memorial Day weekend plans and/or you won’t be flying, read on to see what the data tells Hipmunk about when to book July 4 and Labor Day flights. In short: Hipmunk says that July 4 travel (and over the weekend of July 5-7) should be booked “the fourth week of May for up to 23 percent savings (6 weeks in advance).” Labor Day (Monday, September 2) weekend flights, meanwhile, should be locked up “the first week of July (up to 25 percent savings).”

See the full post here for charts, a breakdown of most-booked holiday destinations, and more.

Related: 17 Ways to Find Cheap Flights

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