When the leaves are turning gold, red, and burnt orange, that means just one thing: You’ve missed the best window for booking affordable holiday travel.
This year, I'm breaking out the booking advice early—so that you have time to take advantage of it.
There are some notable special deals in 2025. Let's look at a few.
Affordable places to stay for the holidays
Don’t be like Joseph and Mary. You want to make sure, well in advance, there’ll be room at the inn, whether you’re traveling for Christmas, New Year, or Thanksgiving. And if you’re a points and miles collector, using those may be a smart move.
"It's hard to get great value from airline miles during heavy travel times, but hotel points can be great," Greg Davis-Kean, founder of the Frequent Miler blog and podcast, told me.
"Some hotel programs limit how much they adjust their point prices for seasonality, and so during expensive travel times, it's often possible to book an outrageously expensive room for a reasonable number of points. The best of these programs is Hyatt since it has a fixed award chart with very reasonable top point prices," Davis-Kean said.
Davis-Kean then gave me this real-time example comparing costs for the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa near Naples, Florida.
- cash rate for a regular King room for one night on New Year's Eve: $1,070 (before taxes), $1,192 after taxes
- points redemption price for the same room, same night: 29,000 points
- point value based on that redemption: $1,192 / 29,000 = 4.1 cents per point
That cents-per-point rate is a little more than double what you’d usually pay for by using points at a Hyatt, according to Frequent Miler, but it's still far less than what you’d pay for that same hotel room during the holiday period.
"It's possible to find similar deals with Hilton and Marriott, but they rarely offer such extreme savings," he added.
If you don’t have a trove of points, consider doing a vacation rental—but use our trick of avoiding fees by booking with the management company. Click here to read more about that.
Find cheaper holiday flight—and dodge issues
To save money on holiday airfares, you need to travel outside of the peak times.
For Thanksgiving, that always means avoiding booking flights on the Wednesday and Sunday of that week, the two most traveled days during that week of the year.
In 2025, Christmas and New Year’s Day will fall on a Thursday, but since the eves of those two holidays are as popular for travel as the holidays themselves, the patterns are a bit harder to grok.
After dozens of checks on different Christmas and New Year’s routes, I didn’t find significant difference between booking Monday or Tuesday outbound. There isn't much price difference for Saturday or Sunday returns of those weeks, either.
What I did see was a lot of Basic Economy fares, so the lesson seems to be that travelers should book their holiday-week flights right now while those cheaper fares are still available. Those will become far more scarce the closer to the holidays we get.
Yes, Basic Economy tickets have a lot of ugly strictures attached (depending on the airline: no carry-on bags, extra costs for checked luggage, no choosing seats, no loyalty miles), but they will be significantly cheaper than regular fares (by $100 or more often), so they are popular.
Many of the less expensive tickets will be for flights with layovers, but booking an itinerary with a plane change can be a dangerous choice at the holidays for two reasons.
Firstly, the holidays fall during storm season, which increases the chance of flight delays. The fewer times you take off and land, the more likely you are to get to your destination on time. If snowstorms delay during one of your legs, the high volume of passengers during the holidays makes it far more difficult for the airlines to rebook you on a convenient alternative flight.
The other red flag: flights on Spirit Airlines, a carrier that’s teetering on the brink of insolvency. Here’s our latest article on its problems. I wouldn’t recommend booking Spirit for holiday travel because it is not clear if it will still be flying then, or if it is, how well it will be able to handle unexpected twists like bad weather.
Book a holiday cruise
If you want a break from the usual homebound gathering with your in-laws, siblings, or parents, why not look at taking a cruise over the holidays? The change in tradition can often mean a family reunion without all the family baggage. And it doesn’t have to be crazy expensive.
"Christmas is generally a better deal [for cruising] than New Years," says Pat Web, CEO of the travel agency CruiseStar.com. "I’m seeing some terrific rates for Christmas."
For example, Webb says, the Majestic Princess will depart Fort Lauderdale on December 20 for 8 nights in the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Antigua, St. Maarten) and the starting price is just $999. That’s lower than last year, Webb says, and an especially good deal for the Southern Caribbean.
"That's one of many deals I’ve seen for the holidays this year," Webb says.
He also says that while Thanksgiving cruises will be more expensive than other November sailings, they’ll still be priced below cruises that depart over spring break.
If you can make do with double occupancy in your staterooms, booking a ship that has fewer of the large cabin configurations may allow you to pay less, Webb says.
"Generally, the cruise ships that have family-style accommodations—triple and quad cabins—sell out at premium prices during the holiday season. Everyone wants to bring a large crew," Webb says.
A seasoned cruise agent can help you find the more affordable ships with cabin availability.
Prepare for road trips over the holidays
Whenever you’re taking a long car ride in the winter or in late autumn, be sure your car is equipped for emergencies.
At the least, you want to have first aid equipment with you, a bit of extra food and drinking water, a blanket (if you’re traveling in the colder areas of the country), a flashlight, flares, and jumper cables.
It’s also a smart idea to get your car checked within a few months of any long road trip. Poorly inflated tires, low oil, and other issues can drive down your vehicle’s fuel efficiency and put you at risk of a breakdown at a moment when the roads are overcrowded.
Try this Thanksgiving stratagem
Because a late November Thanksgiving is celebrated only in the United States, it's a terrific time to head abroad.
The last week of November is considered low season in many European, Asian, Latin American, and African destinations, so that week, hotels tend to be more affordable, and airfares often dip, partially because traffic from the U.S. to other countries also drops that week.
Twice in the last 20 years, I spent Thanksgiving away from my extended family. I went first to Brussels with my husband, and once to Prague with him and the kids—it hosts a fabulous Christmas Market in late November and December. We all had a wonderful time, and my extended family forgave our absences.
I think.