Is It Too Late to Book Holiday Flights? (2026)

Is it too late to book holiday flights for 2026? Not yet, and by most published datasets you are early rather than late.

Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26, and Christmas Day is Friday, December 25. A typical Thanksgiving departure sits about ten weeks out as of mid-September.

The pressure this year is not the calendar. It is the price level, with airline fares running 23.4% above a year earlier in August 2026.

Is it too late to book holiday flights for 2026?

Two things are true at once, and the tension between them is the whole question.

Google's historical data puts the cheapest stretch for Thanksgiving slightly ahead of mid-September. The Points Guy, reading this year's fare levels, advised on September 2, 2026 that travelers book sooner than usual.

Neither read is wrong. One describes an average across several years of data, the other describes the market in front of you right now.

For most travelers the practical answer is that the door is open and it is not closing this week. What has changed is how much the fare behind that door costs.

Where mid-September sits in the holiday booking window

Published booking windows are quoted in days before departure, which is the least useful unit when what you actually want is a date on a calendar.

So here they are, converted. Google's figures come from its holiday travel trends post, published September 9, 2025 and drawn from round-trip fares observed between January 2021 and August 2025 across the top 4,000 US markets.

A 2026 edition had not been published as of mid-September 2026, so that 2025 dataset is the most recent Google has put out.

Read the Thanksgiving rows first. Every Google range in them opens after September 15, which is the plainest available answer to whether you have missed it.

CheapAir's annual airfare study, built on more than 917 million fares in over 8,000 markets, sets its prime booking window at 74 to 21 days out, with the lowest average at 42 days.

On that measure the Thanksgiving window opened on September 12 and the Christmas window opens on October 10. Both datasets land in the same place: October is the month, and it has not started.

For the provider-by-provider verdicts, our guides to when to book Thanksgiving flights and when to book Christmas flights go through them month by month.

What happens to holiday fares between September and November?

Fares do not climb on a schedule. Going describes prices as driven by demand, seat availability, and how full each fare bucket is at a given moment.

That framing matters for a late booker. The calendar is really a proxy for a different question: how many cheap seats are left on your dates.

Holiday-specific fares are tracking above last year too. Points Path data published by The Points Guy on September 2, 2026 puts domestic Thanksgiving round trips 9% to 13% above 2025 and the year-end window 12% to 18% above, with international holiday fares up about 16%.

So the September-to-November stretch is less a slide than a drain. Seats in the cheapest fare buckets get sold, and what remains is priced higher.

Which holiday dates get expensive first?

Airlines sell the cheapest fare buckets before the expensive ones, so dates with the most concentrated demand thin out first.

For Thanksgiving, demand concentrates on the Wednesday before, November 25, and the Sunday after, November 29. For Christmas it spreads across the week of December 21 and the return weekend after New Year's Day, which falls on Friday, January 1, 2027.

• Monday through Wednesday travel is cheaper on average. Google puts the gap at about 13% versus flying over the weekend.
• A layover buys back about 22% on average versus flying nonstop, per the same Google dataset.
• December compresses demand. Going calls it one of the most expensive months to fly, because Christmas and New Year travel pack into a short window.
• Availability moves before price does. Going frames fares as a function of how full each fare bucket is, which is why the tightest dates stop offering the low fare first.

None of that makes the peak days unbookable. It means the peak days are where the gap between waiting and booking is widest.

Our guide to the cheapest days to fly for Thanksgiving has the full day-by-day grid for the 2026 week.

Should you book holiday flights now or wait?

Waiting is a bet, and it is worth pricing the bet in both directions before you place it.

CheapAir's tiers put numbers on that, each one measured against its prime booking window of 74 to 21 days out.

• 315 to 206 days out: about 36% more than the prime window. Booking far ahead is not automatically cheaper.
• 74 to 21 days out: the prime window itself, with the lowest average landing at 42 days.
• 20 to 14 days out: about 8% more.
• 13 to 7 days out: about 26% more.
• 6 to 0 days out: about 59% more.

There is also a free option on the table for the next several weeks. Under 14 CFR 259.5, US carriers must let you hold a reservation at the quoted fare without payment, or cancel it without penalty, for at least 24 hours when the booking is made one week or more before departure.

Booking today is therefore a decision you can reverse tomorrow, once. That is worth more than another week of watching a fare you have not bought.

And a fare you buy now is not a fare you are stuck with.

On cash tickets booked directly with Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, or United, add your trip and Autopilot tracks the fare, reprices the reservation when it drops, and returns the difference as airline credit or a refund.

What if you really are booking late?

Some readers will reach this in November, with Thanksgiving inside three weeks. The answer changes then, but not to despair.

By CheapAir's measure, 13 to 7 days out ran about 26% above the prime window and the final six days about 59%. Going puts the same finding plainly: booking in the final week before a trip usually costs more, not less.

Last-minute drops are real but uncommon, and building a holiday trip around one is a thin plan.

Our guide to whether flight prices drop closer to the date lays out what the datasets actually show.

If your dates are fixed, treat seats rather than price as the binding constraint. Holding something acceptable early beats holding nothing while you wait for a number that may not arrive.

Book a fare you can live with, then keep watching

The best available advice converges on something unglamorous. The Points Guy's own conclusion is to book when you find a fare you are comfortable with, then track prices instead of trying to time the bottom.

That works because buying is not the end of a fare's life. A ticket bought in September can be cheaper in October, and on most fare types that difference is claimable.

Our guide to a holiday flight price drop covers what each fare type returns and how the credit works.

So no, it is not too late to book holiday flights for 2026. The window you were worried about missing is, for most itineraries, still opening.