If you are planning a summer trip this year—and even if you are late to the game—there’s good news all around. Domestic airfares are down, according to the travel firm Hopper, at 5 percent cheaper than summer 2023, and hotel room rates in the U.S. are softer by roughly the same margin. An increase in international airline capacity—flights to Europe from the U.S. alone have seen an 8 percent uptick this summer versus last year—has helped ease pressure on prices, translating to 10 percent savings.
Still, if you find yourself balking at rates, you aren’t imagining things: Traveling after the pandemic is, in fact, pricier than it was before Covid shutdowns. Airfares are 10 percent higher overall than they were in 2019, and the average cost of a room domestically last year, at $180, was around $15 higher than it was four years earlier.
The following is our travel savings playbook for this summer and beyond.
How to score the best deals on hotels
1. BAR none
It’s a mistake to assume that endless googling will unearth cheaper prices than simply booking directly on a hotel’s website. These days, such direct bookings will almost always offer what’s known as the BAR, or best available rate. The reason is simple: By booking directly with the hotel, on its own site, the property won’t need to share commission with Hotels.com and the like, so it can pass on the savings to you. You’ll also avoid the scammy vendors that often clutter the results of such resellers, offering seemingly cheaper deals that turn out to be more expensive when you finally reach the payment page.
2. Find the freebies
If you’re planning a stay with a chain, like Accor or Marriott, make sure to join its loyalty program, which is always free. In exchange for your data, you’ll get bonus benefits, like comped breakfast or gratis wi-fi.
3. If you don’t ask, you won’t get
Don’t be afraid to engage with the hotel directly to ask if there’s flexibility around a given rate. Send a polite email, pointing out that you’d love to book five nights but wondered if there’s an incentive they could offer for that longer stay—a 10 percent discount, perhaps, or a free meal or two. We promise, it’s not tacky. They are thrilled to offer something to you in exchange for booking directly with them (see No. 1).
4. Futureproof your price for free
Do you have the niggling fear that after you’ve settled on a price, it will go down? That’s where Pruvo comes in. Make sure to book a refundable room, then forward the confirmation to save@pruvo.com. (You can also install a Google Chrome extension, which automates the process even further.) The company’s software will then monitor for price cuts and alert you when they happen, prompting you to cancel that first reservation and snap up the same room at a lower rate. Pruvo is free to use, too, as it makes money through commissions, and per the firm’s own studies, prices drop in four out of 10 cases after booking, on average by around 14 percent.
5. Resale isn’t limited to vintage clothes
If you’re heading to a popular destination, consider a reseller like Roomer. Think of this like eBay for hotel rooms: Anyone with a nonrefundable booking they can no longer use can list it for resale via Roomer (free to list, and sellers pay a 15 percent fee when it sells). You can then snap up that room at a discounted rate, so the original traveler loses less money than they might have done otherwise, and you score a superb deal on a room that isn’t otherwise discounted. A win-win! Roomer claims that the average discount is around 45 percent, but expect it to be lower in peak season in prime places.
6. Travel like it’s 2010
Remember Groupon, that deal-offering darling of a decade ago? It’s still operating, albeit at a lower profile, and you can often score great packages there. The best way to use it is to search its Getaways Collections and sort by category, whether casino hotels or water parks, and then by price.
How to score the best deals on flights
1. New routes = smart deals
One of the best strategies for saving is to focus on what’s new, whether routes, airlines, or destinations. Lesser-known routes are by definition cheaper and are more likely to use promotions to gin up interest. Take the West Coast–Caribbean routing, a formerly less popular route where airlines are now seeing interest and adding service with gusto. Several carriers have introduced new nonstops. Cayman Airways, for example, expanded its LAX–Grand Cayman service to twice weekly late last year, while JetBlue programmed an LAX–Nassau flight around the same time, connecting Southern California with the Bahamas nonstop. Alaska Airlines did the same thing, with year-round service from L.A. to Guatemala; it also now offers a winter getaway from Seattle and L.A. to Nassau, the first-ever direct to the Bahamas from SEA.
2. Go beyond the big names
Don’t forget that there’s a range of airlines beyond the major carriers, many of them start-ups with smarter business models (translation: better fares for you). Use Google Flights for the broadest search, and when you see the results, pull down the Airlines tab; scan it for unfamiliar names beyond Delta, American, and Southwest. Consider Breeze Airways, for example, which calls itself the “Nice Low Cost Carrier,” with benefits like brand-spanking-new planes and bargain prices; most of the planes are already fitted with wi-fi for in-flight entertainment to stream to your device (and every plane will be by fall). It was started three years ago by David Neeleman, the same man who invented JetBlue more than two decades ago. Its main area of focus is the Southeast, rather than the Northeast, where JetBlue started. It has hubs in Charleston, Tampa, Norfolk, and New Orleans; the most recently added Breeze hub was Fort Myers, Florida. Neeleman’s new carrier connects smaller airports, often in cities that were once well served by those major carriers before they consolidated and cut back.
3. And go ever-more-niche regional carrier
Don’t discount super-niche regional carriers like Silver Airways, a South Florida–headquartered operator that serves the Caribbean, just because you have never heard of them: There are one-way flights from West Palm Beach to the Bahamas, for example, starting at $59 one way. BermudAir is another notable start-up: It connects the island territory, still deeply British despite its proximity to the U.S., with five cities here, including Baltimore and Orlando.
4. New airports unlock destinations
Tulum is one of the hottest destinations in Mexico, the Instagram-anointed wellness hub that’s now rivaling Cancun and Cabo San Lucas in popularity. The biggest issue for quick trips there was logistical: It’s an hour-plus drive from Cancun airport, the region’s longtime hub; with traffic, it could take much longer. That problem was resolved earlier this year with the opening of TQO, Tulum’s own international airport, which quickly saw service added from almost every major U.S.–based carrier—Delta, United, American, and JetBlue are already operating service there.
5. Warehouse clubs are the best-kept travel secret
If you have a membership to a warehouse club, such as Sam’s or Costco, there are travel deals available to you already that you’ve probably never noticed. Go to the website and look for a Travel tab. Costco, for example, offers packages, hotels, cruises, and rental cars, which include member-only discounts on all those categories. Similarly, there’s a tab on airlines’ websites that many people overlook, like the Vacations tab on AA.com and Southwest.com, among others. These also offer packages, a popular way to travel in Europe, where flights and hotel rooms are bundled. Although we Americans are less inclined to book this way, these deals can be especially meaningful during peak season. Here’s how it works: Airlines allocate seats on certain flights to these packages and ring-fence them from the algorithms that typically control prices, which makes them markedly less susceptible to spikes in pricing of any kind. If you’re traveling in peak season, whether July or Thanksgiving, this means that such bundled deals can sometimes prove cheaper than booking the flight alone.