“There is a lot of cheap flights going down to Florida, it’s definitely that key time, that key week, that when people want off, the prices go up.”
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A lot of people are expected to travel during the winter break, so many families are anxious to go places. Travel agents with AAA are seeing a lot of people traveling by car and to warmer climates.
“It’s definitely more expensive, especially because the airlines, the hotels, the destinations, they realized when winter break is from different areas. They will know that this is when we have off, when the kids have off,” said Elizabeth Carey, the director of public relations with AAA.
And there’s a trend travel agents are seeing.
“A lot of people said ‘we haven’t gone anywhere, we are going to go all out,'” Carey said. “We are going to do a suite instead of a regular hotel room. We are going to really treat ourselves because we deserve this. We waited so long for this vacation.”
That’s what happened to Herb Cool and his wife and their trip to Hawaii.
“For two years, we’ve had that plan we’ve had to cancel it twice,” Cool said.
And on the other hand Carey says, “Some people are saying, we are going down to the Caribbean and one of the islands. We are going to have to test negative to return and they worry that maybe they will test positive or be down there and they’ll have to extend their vacation or be stranded down there in a hotel in paradise when they can’t go outside because they are quarantined and they tested positive. So, those people are saying they are going to go to Florida. So, we can just fly back and don’t need a negative test to fly back in the United States.”
But, the best way to save money is to be flexible.
“If the kids can miss a few days of school, go a little earlier, come back a little bit later, but then there are some people who say you know what, we haven’t taken a vacation in two years. We want to go away and we are going pay the price,” she said.
Whatever you choose to do, Carey said don’t wait until the last minute.
“There is a lot of cheap flights going down to Florida, it’s definitely that key time, that key week, that when people want off, the prices go up,” she said.