Thanksgiving is just weeks away and if you're traveling by plane and don't have a ticket yet, prepare yourself. There are going to be more fees, including an airline surcharge for traveling on the busiest days surrounding the upcoming holidays -- including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. High fares plus added airline surcharges are all adding up to expensive travel for many this holiday season.
Over the past week, past week most of the major US airlines have increased their surcharges for domestic flights during busy holidays to $20 each way, brazenly doubling the $10 fees which became the norm last week.
In late September American Airlines became the first airline to explicitly charge a $10 surcharge each way for three days around Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Immediately after American Airlines announcement, most major airlines did the same thing and added a surcharge onto already high fares.
There were three initial travel surcharge days when the airlines started charging the extra fee. Now the travel surcharge days have increased from three in winter to a total of 13 over the entire year.
Which airlines are not charging a surcharge for holiday travel?Southwest and JetBlue have not added the surcharge to date and stated they are not planning to adopt such fees. Their fees are a bargain compared to other airlines, so flying budget has some great advantages.
There is no word on surcharges on airlines in Europe, although fares may be higher during peak times. There is a possibility of a British Airways strike during the Christmas holiday so that will pose a completely different problem for Christmas travelers.
Here are the travel dates this holiday season that you should expect a surcharge on most US airlines (excluding Southwest and JetBlue):
Dates to expect a peak travel surcharge for travel in the US
November 29-30, 2009: Weekend after Thanksgiving
December 19: Saturday before Christmas
December 26-27: Weekend after Christmas
January 2-3, 2010: Weekend after New Year's Day
March 14, 2010: Sunday before many student spring breaks
March 20-21, 2010: Weekend after many student spring breaks
March 28, 2010: Palm Sunday, weekend before Easter
April 11, 2010: Sunday after Easter
May 28, 2010: Friday before Memorial Day
If you can avoid travel on these dates, you'll save about $40 round trip by not paying the hefty airline surcharge. If time is not an issue for the Thanksgiving holiday, flying home on Monday and not on the weekend immediately after Thanksgiving will likely save you the costly surcharge and the airports are sure to be a little less crowded.
Cheryl Phillips
HULIQ.com
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