Holiday Flight Prices 2025 Drop For U.S. Travelers

Published on Nov 21, 2025, 4:13 pm CST

8 min read

Key points

KAYAK data shows 2025 U.S. holiday travel searches up 10 percent year over year while average international and domestic airfares are slightly cheaper
International flight prices are down about 7 percent, domestic airfares are down 1 percent, U.S. rental car rates have dropped 6 percent, and hotel prices are mostly stable
Eastern European cities such as Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn, and Budapest are seeing sharp increases in holiday flight searches as Romania and Bulgaria become easier Schengen gateways
Myrtle Beach, Bozeman, and Reno show the biggest domestic airfare drops while Tokyo, Venice, and Helsinki lead international deals compared with 2024
KAYAK data from 2024 suggests November 24 for Thanksgiving and December 24 for Christmas offered the cheapest holiday fares, a pattern travelers may see again in 2025
KAYAK's new AI Mode lets travelers use conversational searches to surface flights, hotels, and rental cars that match specific dates, budgets, and holiday preferences

Impact

Where Prices Are Falling: Expect the biggest relative savings on long haul international routes such as Tokyo, Venice, and Helsinki plus selected domestic spots like Myrtle Beach, Bozeman, and Reno compared with 2024
Best Times To Fly: Target quieter departure days such as November 24 for Thanksgiving and December 24 for Christmas to trade slightly awkward timing for cheaper fares and calmer airports
Best Days To Book: Watch late November promo periods including Cyber Monday for domestic deals and Travel Tuesday for international discounts while still pricing trips early with alerts
Onward Travel And Changes: If you add Eastern Europe to your plans, factor in smoother Schengen travel through Romania and Bulgaria plus winter weather margins on regional links
What Travelers Should Do Now: Price out flexible date ranges, try alternate airports and Eastern European city pairs, and use tools like KAYAK AI Mode to stress test different holiday budgets before committing

Holiday flight prices 2025 are trending lower even as demand rises, according to new KAYAK data based on U.S. holiday searches. The study finds searches up 10 percent year over year while average international fares are down 7 percent, domestic flights are 1 percent cheaper, and U.S. rental car rates have dropped 6 percent, with hotel prices roughly flat. That mix matters for anyone still planning a Thanksgiving or December getaway, because travelers who stay flexible on dates and destinations can use the softer pricing to stretch budgets further.

In practical terms, the latest KAYAK report turns holiday flight prices 2025 into a timing and routing puzzle rather than a simple budget squeeze, with lower average fares but sharper differences between peak travel days and quieter value windows for U.S. origin trips.

How Holiday Prices Compare With 2024

KAYAK's holiday forecast for 2025 focuses on searches from U.S. airports for the Thanksgiving and late December periods. Across those windows, the company reports a 10 percent year over year increase in search interest, a clear sign that Americans still want to travel despite higher day to day living costs.

The pricing picture is more encouraging than many travelers expect. On average, international flight prices are about 7 percent lower than last year, domestic fares are down 1 percent, and U.S. rental car prices have dropped about 6 percent. Hotel rates are not falling, but KAYAK's data shows only modest increases, roughly 2 percent for domestic stays and about 5 percent for international properties year over year. For most travelers, that means air and ground costs are doing more of the work than hotels when it comes to offsetting inflation.

The methodology behind these figures matters. KAYAK analyzed searches made between March 1 and August 31 2025 for trips departing between November 21 2025 and January 7 2026, and compared them with equivalent 2024 windows, so the trends reflect actual planning behavior rather than a narrow sale week snapshot.

Eastern Europe Emerges As A Value Play

One of the most striking themes in the 2025 data is how strongly Eastern Europe stands out as a holiday season target. Warsaw in Poland shows searches up around 73 percent year over year, while Prague in the Czech Republic is up roughly 65 percent, with Tallinn in Estonia and Budapest in Hungary also logging notable increases in interest.

KAYAK's release ties that surge to two structural changes that travelers can use. First, there are more transatlantic and regional routes pushing capacity into Central and Eastern European hubs. Second, Romania and Bulgaria have now joined the Schengen Area, with air and sea border checks lifted in spring 2024 and full land border integration completed on January 1 2025. That shift turns cities from Bucharest to Sofia and Black Sea gateways into easier entry points for multi country winter itineraries that combine low prices with Christmas markets, historic centers, and ski connections.

For U.S. travelers, this means that Eastern European city breaks can compete with classic Western European favorites on both price and logistics. If you were previously focused on Paris or London for December, it may be worth pricing Warsaw or Prague next to them, particularly from major hubs where new nonstop and one stop options have opened up.

Where The Best Holiday Deals Are

KAYAK's domestic deal list shows three U.S. destinations with double digit airfare drops compared with 2024. Myrtle Beach in South Carolina is the standout, with average fares about 18 percent lower at roughly 342 dollars round trip. Bozeman in Montana is down about 10 percent to around 509 dollars, and Reno in Nevada is down 15 percent to about 414 dollars.

Internationally, the biggest advertised price cuts are long haul. Tokyo shows average holiday fares down 29 percent to about 1,071 dollars, Venice is down 18 percent to around 823 dollars, and Helsinki is down 19 percent to roughly 727 dollars. These are still substantial sums, but the double digit declines give more headroom for hotel upgrades, excursions, or simply holding the total trip cost roughly flat despite higher on the ground spending.

Travelers should not treat those cities as the only options. Instead, they are useful reference points for what a strong deal looks like by region. If Tokyo is down nearly a third year over year, for example, then other Asia Pacific gateways may also price out competitively, and it becomes easier to justify a farther trip if you were already considering an expensive domestic itinerary.

When To Fly For Thanksgiving And Christmas

Timing is where KAYAK's holiday data gets most practical. Looking back at 2024 bookings, the company notes that Cyber Monday produced the cheapest domestic fares of the season, averaging about 316 dollars, while Travel Tuesday offered the lowest international fares at around 793 dollars. If similar dynamics hold, that late November pairing will again be important for bargain hunters who have not yet booked.

On the travel side, KAYAK highlights November 24 as the cheapest Thanksgiving departure day for domestic trips, with average fares of about 415 dollars, and December 24 as the sweet spot for Christmas travel, combining quieter airports with lower average fares, around 393 dollars domestically and 864 dollars internationally. Those dates can look awkward if you want a full week away, but they are powerful tools if you can adjust your plans to fly closer to the holiday itself and stay flexible about red eyes or early morning departures.

For travelers routing through weather sensitive hubs along the U.S. east coast or upper Midwest, it also pays to layer these price insights over storm and air traffic risk. Our recent outlook on Thanksgiving storms in the eastern United States explains how frontal systems and lake effect snow can stack delays at key hubs even when national capacity is otherwise stable.[2] Combined with the FAA's decision to lift shutdown era flight caps ahead of the peak Thanksgiving window, that makes local congestion and weather, rather than structural schedule cuts, the main operational wildcard this year.[3]

How To Use KAYAK AI Mode To Plan Smarter

KAYAK's AI Mode is the second big part of this story, because it changes how easily travelers can actually use the underlying data. Launched on October 15 2025, the feature lets you type natural language prompts into a dedicated AI Mode search box and receive real time flight, hotel, and rental car options stitched together from KAYAK's usual metasearch partners.

KAYAK's own examples include queries such as asking for a Christmas week getaway under 500 dollars from a specific home airport, a car large enough for six people and holiday gifts from a Chicago area hub, or a family trip from Boston to London with detailed dates and cabin specifications. Under the hood, the system blends KAYAK's live pricing feeds with a conversational interface so you can iterate on constraints, like nudging the budget up, shifting dates to November 24 or December 24, or swapping in Eastern European cities instead of Western European standards.

Right now, AI Mode is officially available in English on desktop and mobile browsers in the United States, with more languages and regions planned. That makes it most useful for U.S. based travelers who want to quickly compare multiple scenarios without juggling dozens of browser tabs.

What Travelers Should Do Next

For travelers, the takeaway is that 2025 holiday flight prices are not a runaway crisis so much as a game of timing and flexibility. If you have fixed school calendars or limited vacation days, start with the dates you cannot move, then look for alternative airports, including Eastern European or secondary U.S. gateways that show softer prices. If you do have flexibility, use price alerts and AI Mode prompts to explore multiple date combinations around November 24 for Thanksgiving and December 24 for Christmas, then commit while the best options are still available.

It is also worth budgeting a small premium for resilience. Even with national flight caps lifted and average cancellations running low, winter storms and crowded hubs can still produce misconnects and overnight delays. A slightly more expensive nonstop or a connection through a less congested hub can be worth the extra cost if it materially reduces your risk of spending the holiday in an airport rather than at your destination.