Held off on taking a summer vacation? You may still be able to squeeze in one on the cheap.<\/p>\n
Record numbers of travelers have been flooding airports since the pandemic, but U.S. airlines now face a surplus of empty seats after racing to add capacity. Many are slashing prices to fill them, making bargain flights more readily available than they have been in years, travel agents and industry experts say.<\/p>\n \u201cDeals are easier to find this summer since prices are already so low,\u201d said Hayley Berg, lead economist at the travel booking site Hopper.<\/p>\n Flights overall were at least 5% cheaper as of June than the year before, government inflation data shows. Hopper estimated domestic airfares for August are down about 6% since a year ago, and it flagged supercheap domestic round-trip deals this month \u2014 like $69 for Chicago to Baltimore and $82 for New York to Nashville.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just airfares \u2014 costs are cooling off for car rentals and hotel rooms too. They were down roughly 6% and 3% year over year, respectively, in the federal data and are now about flat in most cities on Priceline.<\/p>\n For clients with a little flexibility in their travel dates, I\u2019ve been able to get very low airfare for last-minute trips.<\/p>\n Ashley D\u2019Aristotile, owner of Flyaway Travel<\/cite><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The discounts expand the map for late-season travelers and coincide with a broader value push this summer. Restaurant chains from McDonald\u2019s to P.F. Chang\u2019s are dangling promotions to hang on to frugal customers. The gambit is largely working, with major retailers\u2019 recent sales helping prop up consumer spending and the economy as a whole.<\/p>\n Vacation-planning procrastinators are having better luck this year.<\/p>\n On July 26, Debra Banton, 61, and her 26-year-old daughter Rachel booked a trip overseas departing in two weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe usually plan way in advance, never last minute,\u201d said Banton, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. But Rachel works full time while attending school, leaving little down time, and since she\u2019s never been to Europe and is getting married next May, they figured now\u2019s their best shot.<\/p>\n \u201cWith just four weeks\u2019 planning time, I was able to secure the last few rooms at some fabulous resorts in Greece and get them a great deal on business-class air to Athens,\u201d said Kimberly Hilliard, their Annapolis, Maryland-based travel adviser with Front Porch Travel.<\/p>\n While prices typically come down heading into the fall, the current end-of-summer season is a \u201cunique window\u201d for travelers who haven\u2019t booked far in advance, said Jesse Neugarten, the CEO and founder of Dollar Flight Club.<\/p>\n The flight alert site said the average international airfare from the U.S. over the next three months is $401, and the average domestic flight costs $212 \u2014 collectively down an average of 29% from the same period a year ago.<\/p>\n \u201cFor clients with a little flexibility in their travel dates, I\u2019ve been able to get very low airfare for last-minute trips,\u201d said Ashley D\u2019Aristotile, the owner of Orlando, Florida-based Flyaway Travel.<\/p>\n Lousson Smith, a flight expert at the travel site Going, agrees: \u201cAt this point in the summer, if you\u2019re flexible, you can find something really nice under $150 nonstop from major markets, but anything under $200 this late in the game is a decent deal.\u201d<\/p>\n While the costs of U.S. flights to Europe soared during the post-pandemic travel boom, Hopper estimates international airfares have fallen 9% since last summer. Round trips from Boston to Dublin, for example, have been going for as low as $415 this month, Hopper said, and there are $461 options between Chicago and Paris.<\/p>\n Domestically, the Southeast is seeing some of the best bargains, according to Priceline, with both Miami and Nashville making its \u201cmost affordable\u201d list for August.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Held off on taking a summer vacation? 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