How to get the best deals on Travel Tuesday

Amid holiday travel, consumers may not be thinking about their next trip post-holiday season, but it’s an opportune time to start.

Deals haven’t disappeared with Black Friday, especially for the travel industry. Consumers can still look forward to Travel Tuesday, the traveler’s Black Friday. In fact, some of the best deals of the season are yet to come.

What is Travel Tuesday?

Much like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Travel Tuesday sees various discounts on all things travel including flights, hotels, cruises and tours. This year, Travel Tuesday falls on Nov. 28.

According to Afar , the flight-booking site Hopper analyzed travel pricing data from the past decade and found that the best discounts come during cyber week, with the highest volume falling on Travel Tuesday in 2022.

Hopper economist Hayley Berg told Afar that these deals come at a time of low travel demand for consumers, as they’ve booked holiday travel but haven’t planned any further out.

How to find the best travel deals

Julie Ramhold, a consumer analyst at DealNews.com , told CNBC that consumers should be watching in the days leading up to Travel Tuesday. Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are likely to be in effect for multiple days, with others specific to Tuesday, so keeping an eye on the deals will prove helpful to those looking to take advantage of the best ones.

These, Ramhold said , will likely sell quickly, “not just because it’s a lot of attention, but there may only be a limited offer that they’re providing.”

While travel agencies often present better discounts, you can still find worthwhile deals by being creative.

Scott Keyes, founder of Going.com , told CNBC that airlines also advertise discounts, but advised consumers to remember that those aren’t always going to be the best deals they can get. Like many travelers have come to find, better deals are usually running in secret.

How can you find them? It’s easier than you might think.

As a novice traveler, I’ve discovered a couple of ways to find these deals, specifically on flights, which can be one of the most expensive facets of travel, domestically and internationally.

How to find flight deals through search

Here’s how to get started in your flight search:

This tool is not a secret, but I suspect it’s underutilized. It’s also ridiculously easy to use. Simply visit Google Flights and, using the flights tab, input the airport you will fly out of, a destination you’d like to visit and click on the calendar to see prices.

You can do this with as many destinations as you’d like and, if you don’t have a specific location in mind, there is an explore tab to see prices for different locations during certain time frames. You can even track prices of individual flights if you aren’t ready to purchase them yet.

Once you’ve selected dates, Google will show you the cheapest flights for your chosen dates, as well as others that may allow for more baggage or use of different airlines (though you can filter those as well).

Full disclosure, this method works best for people who have more flexibility in location and sometimes with dates. For a nominal fee, these companies will look for and email you flight deals to destinations worldwide. Some focus on flights out of local airports and some search for flights departing airports nationally.

Besides normal flight discounts, you may also see open jaw flights (one-way flights out of one airport to another, with the return flight back to the original airport from a different city or country) and mistake fares (these often get rescinded, but there’s still a chance you’ll not be refunded and get to keep the trip). The companies include Flights from Home (flights out of Utah) and Pomelo (flights out of U.S. hubs).

There is the option of following these companies on social media and searching for the flight deals they post to their feeds. Granted, they send more deals to paid subscribers and those that get posted on social media need to be utilized faster, or already expired.

That doesn’t mean you won’t find gems, though. Personally I got at least four emails about mass sales on flights to Europe over the course of a week, meaning those that were posted to Instagram hadn’t all expired yet.

What travel deals should you look out for in 2023?

Conde Nast Traveler released an article detailing 40 of the best Black Friday travel deals, many of which will still be in effect for Travel Tuesday and beyond. These include deals on travel booked with Crystal Cruises, Cruise Croatia, Expedia, Hotels.com , Hilton, Sandals Resorts and Resort Beaches, Virgin Hotels, Contiki, and EF Go Ahead Tours.

Depending on your time and style of travel, look for deals that pertain most to the trip you’d like to take. Utilize travel agencies and corporate websites to find the best deals on stays and tours. For flights, peek at the airlines’ advertised discounts, but do spend the time using other tools to find the best deals possible.