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Holiday Travel Tips to Help You Navigate Airport Chaos This Season
16.12.2023 - 15:39 / cntraveler.com / Gary Leff
There's no place like home for the holidays—but for many of us, getting there unfortunately requires a trip to the airport, and this year promises to be one of the busiest holiday travel seasons yet.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, a record-breaking number of passengers boarded planes on Sunday, November 26, with nearly 3 million people passing through security checkpoints—the highest one-day total in the TSA's history. There were hardly any flight cancellations, though, which bodes well for the December holidays.
But things are only predicted to get busier over Christmas and New Year's, with the American Automobile Association (AAA) predicting a record-breaking 7.5 million air travelers. Plus, there's a higher chance that snow and ice could bungle flight operations. Add it all together, and, well flyers should hope for the best but prepare for the worst, as they say.
Fortunately, there are a few easy strategies to prevent your well-earned break from turning into a travel nightmare. We asked air travel experts for their best tips on how to navigate flight chaos, from lost luggage to canceled flights.
To be prepared for even the most dramatic cancellations and delays, you’ll want to have a backup plan before flight disruptions begin. If you still haven't bought your flights, “the ultimate hack is booking more than one trip,” says Gary Leff, an airline expert who covers the industry on his blog “View from the Wing.” Most major airlines no longer charge change fees—as long as you don’t book in basic economy. “Book the ticket you plan to fly, and then a second one on another airline for a few hours later. Assuming your first one goes off without a hitch, cancel the second ticket and use the credit for travel later,” Leff says. Be sure to note any expiration date on the voucher: some airlines’ credits but some do, according to Leff.
If you have abundant loyalty points, you could put them to use on this strategy, too. “An even better way to play this is to buy a ticket on one airline, and redeem miles for travel on another,” Leff says. “With most airlines there’s no longer even a fee to cancel and redeposit miles as long as you do it prior to [the] scheduled departure of your trip. So miles are a great way to have a backup flight already booked. And if you don’t need it, there’s frequently no cost to cancel.”
A less-excessive hack to decrease the odds of your flight being delayed is to book the earliest flight available. “Travel early in the day rather than later in the day,” Leff says. “Delays stack up; the later in the day you fly, the greater chance your flight will be delayed. Traveling earlier also increases the likelihood of same-day options to get where you’re going if your flight cancels or you
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