Last-minute savings for the Thanksgiving holiday are popping up. The prices may surprise you.
“You came from Homestead?” CBS News Miami asked traveler Paula Augustine.
“Yeah, I wish we would have gone to Miami, but we came up here because it was cheaper,” she replied.
Augustine drove from Homestead to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to catch her flight to Louisville, Kentucky, after finding a $140 fare.
“We’re seeing a lot of discounted inventory leading up to the holidays,” said Zach Griff, a travel expert with The Points Guy.
He told CBS News Miami that a lot of those deals are with low-fare airlines, but those carriers are upping their game with amenities.
“If you are looking for the best deal, you’ll probably find it with Spirit. You’ll probably find it with Frontier. But so what? Like, you know you’ll get to your destination and you’ll have more money in your wallet,” Griff said. “So, it’s a win-win.”
CBS News Miami went on Google Flights, put in Fort Lauderdale to Chicago, going the Monday before Thanksgiving, and coming back the day after. It has us flying up on American and back on Spirit, but look at the price: $138 round trip.
Griff said airlines are competing for your money.
“The larger airlines are looking to do as much as they can to wound Spirit, and so they’ve been matching their fares, they’ve been offering promotions, things like that,” he said.
Astar Thorns and her group got a great deal from Houston to Fort Lauderdale.
“We paid $107,” she said.
But wishes she had done a little more research.
“I feel like we got a good deal because of what’s going on in the economy. Period, but my mother-in-law got a better deal with American,” she said.
Griff gives a warning: Don’t take too long to snag one of those deals — the closer we get to Thanksgiving, the faster those prices will go up.
