Holiday journey 2025: Americans suppose they waited too lengthy to guide, however there’s nonetheless time

We simply obtained via Labor Day, however the winter vacation season is shortly approaching. For the second 12 months in a row, TPG commissioned The Harris Poll to gauge Americans’ sentiments round vacation journey. One of probably the most stunning findings was that these surveyed suppose they’ve already missed the perfect reserving window for flights.

But now we have excellent news.

The finest time to guide flights for Thanksgiving journeys is from the tip of September to the tip of October. Trips for Christmas needs to be booked round Halloween and by mid-November on the newest — no less than, if you’d like the perfect costs.

Related: The finest time to guide flights for the most affordable airfare

The finest time to guide home flights is one to 2 months forward of time.

The different fascinating discovering is that many extra Americans are planning to journey for the vacations this 12 months than final 12 months. That’s regardless of some information suggesting demand has fallen.

Americans are planning extra vacation journey this 12 months

Nearly 2 in 3 Americans (65%) are planning to journey through the vacation season (between Thanksgiving and New Year’s) this 12 months. That’s a rise from simply over half (51%) who mentioned the identical last year.

Younger generations seem particularly enthusiastic about traveling this holiday season. Generation Z and millennials are more likely to express intentions to travel and nearly twice as likely to plan international flights this holiday season, compared to Generation X and baby boomers.

Among those who plan to travel this holiday season, most (83%) are planning to visit family and friends, and more than half (55%) plan to take a vacation during this time (similar to 2024, when 81% planned to visit family and friends and 52% planned to take a vacation).

Three in five holiday travelers (60%) plan to fly to their destination this holiday season (similar to 2024, when 55% noted they’d be flying for the holidays), with half (50%) planning domestic flights (up from 44% in 2024) and just over 1 in 4 (26%) planning to fly internationally (similar to 2024, when 24% mentioned plans to fly outside the U.S. for the holidays).

Among holiday travelers, Gen Z and millennials are more likely than Gen X and baby boomers to say they plan to fly internationally this holiday season (34% each for the former versus 18% and 16%, respectively, for the latter).

We should note that the 2025 survey was conducted in early September, one month earlier than the 2024 survey, which was conducted in early October of last year. This difference in timing may affect responses concerning travel.

When to book holiday travel — it’s not too late

Despite our constant refrain to wait a little longer for prices to drop before booking flights for the holidays, more than half of holiday travelers (54%) have initiated booking at least some of their holiday travel, although only 31% say they have completed all their arrangements.

A majority of those who have started booking their holiday travel for this year report having scored savings (92%), with hotel stays (51%) topping the list, followed by saving on flights (42%), vacation rentals (34%) and rental vehicles (34%).

Of course, if you find a good deal on flights for the holidays, jump on it, but right now, prices for both Thanksgiving and Christmas trips are higher this year than they were last year, according to new data we collected with our friends at Points Path.

We discovered costs are about 7% increased 12 months over 12 months for each Thanksgiving and Christmas, however costs are more likely to drop as we enter the traditionally finest reserving home windows for vacation journeys within the subsequent few weeks and months.

If earlier tendencies maintain, we anticipate to see some pretty substantial fare drops over the following a number of weeks. Our finest recommendation is to set Google Flights value alerts to observe costs simply.

Points Path is a free internet browser extension that exhibits factors and miles award costs in Google Flights, together with money fares. It makes use of reams of search information to higher perceive how airways are at present pricing flights.

Related: How to make use of the Points Path extension to match money and award charges in Google Flights

As a reminder, TPG recommends reserving home flights one to 2 months prematurely. You ought to have already set a Google Flights alert, however now could be the time to guide Thanksgiving journeys, and you need to guide Christmas journey round Halloween and no later than early November.

According to The Harris Poll-TPG survey, about 1 in 3 vacationers who really feel they’ve waited too lengthy to guide vacation journey say it is as a result of they have been ready for costs to go down (33%) or ready to verify plans with family and friends (35%).

But, as we have instructed, it isn’t too late to guide these flights.

It might nonetheless make sense to make use of factors and miles

Of course, whereas it won’t all the time be the proper use of factors and miles, utilizing rewards for vacation journey might nonetheless be your finest wager, particularly if money costs are excessive.

The Harris Poll-TPG survey discovered {that a} whopping 88% of vacation vacationers with rewards program factors or miles plan to redeem them for vacation journey, and extra are planning to make use of their rewards for resorts (54%) than for airfare (32%) this 12 months.

Just over 3 in 5 vacation vacationers with journey rewards (62%) plan to redeem extra journey rewards this 12 months than they did final vacation season.

That’s why these of us at TPG love having a stash of factors and miles, whether or not you propose to make use of them for the vacations, last-minute emergencies or that once-in-a-lifetime journey in enterprise class. It’s all the time good to have a stash.

Related: Credit cards that can get you $1,000 or more in first-year value

Indeed, 4 in 5 holiday travelers (80%) are enrolled in travel rewards programs (up from 76% last year).

Interestingly, just over 2 in 3 holiday travelers (68%) say price is a bigger priority to them than staying at their favorite hotel or flying with their favorite airline when traveling this holiday season.

Travelers are worried about delays and cancellations

Finally, we found that weather delays are the biggest worry around holiday travel.

Of those planning travel, 88% have some concerns. Just over half (51%) are worried about weather delays (up from just 43% last year), and 47% say they are worried about high volumes of travelers (similar to 47% last year).

Other concerns holiday travelers are worried about while traveling include airline delays and cancellations (32%, up from 27% last year), packing (26%), lost luggage (26%) and traveling with gifts (18%).

But never fear: TPG is here with all the tips and tricks you need to win at holiday travel.

Related reading:

Survey method: This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of The Points Guy from Sept. 2-4, 2025, among 2,093 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, among whom 1,390 are planning to travel this holiday season. The 2024 survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of The Points Guy from Oct. 3-7, 2024, among 2,085 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, among whom 1,069 were planning to travel during the 2024 holiday season. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For these studies, the sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.5 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest.