This year, Black Friday falls on November 29th and Cyber Monday falls on December 2nd.
I publish this guild every year to help you navigate the top travel deals of the season. This guild will be updated every day as the best airfare sales are released, so make sure you bookmark this page and check back often. Without further ado, let’s start deal hunting! ☟
Tips for Scoring Airfare Deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
The most important thing to remember is that staying flexible on dates and destinations is the best way to score really cheap airfare deals. The more flexible you can be, the better the airfare deals you’ll find. This is usually no problem for wanderlust travelers!
Here are a few more tips and tricks to find good deals:
- Look at flying out of further-away and larger more internationally connected airports; they may have deeper discounts on certain routes. Example: My closest international airport is Tulsa. However, my wife and I primarily fly out of Dallas.
- If you find a great deal but are not necessarily into the destination, consider where else you can travel in the area. For example, if you find a great airfare to Brussels, Belgium, know you can hop on a train and be in Paris or Amsterdam in less than a couple hours.
- Move quick and start early! You will have to be ready to book (without second-guessing) because flight deals will move quickly. Book the flight! You can plan the logistics later. Airlines will have a limited number of fares at the best price, then the promotion will close.
- If you are like me, you have specific airlines you love to fly with. Keep an eye on their websites and social media accounts throughout Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Take a moment now to sign up for newsletters from your favorite airlines. They will likely announce flash sales via email.
- Flash airfare sales are usually for destinations in their low season. Do not let that deter you from booking the flights! Some of my best trips were at destinations in their low season.
- All-in-one vacation packages will be on “sale” during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you plan to target these, research in advance package prices to know for sure you are getting a deal.
- Budget airlines will be offering crazy cheap airfare deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, make sure you think about the extra cost of flying on budget airlines. Usually, checked bags and possibly even carry-ons will come with a charge. For long flights, drinks and meals may cost you.
- There are loopholes to consider such as hidden city airfares. Hidden city airfares are where you get off at the layover instead of flying to the final destination. For example, a flight from Dallas to Barcelona may cost $950, but a similar flight from Dallas to Milan with a layover in Barcelona may cost $550. If you want to go to Barcelona, you choose the cheaper flight and get off at the layover rather than continuing to the final destination. There are sites that specialize in this type of travel ingenuity such as Skiplagged.com.
- Quickly read over the fine print. Deals often come with restrictions or exclusions. Make sure you know what you are getting. As like every year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will have eye-catching airfare deal marketing campaigns. Full fare tickets, even deeply discounted, are still expensive.
- Use a private internet browser or in Google Chrome an “incognito window” to search for these flights. If you don’t, airline companies and flight comparison websites will use your browsing history, cookies, site data, and information you have entered on other forms against you. To find the best airfare deals, you will need to be devoted! It will take hours of time on both days to find them. Make no mistake, this is a hunt and the best thing for a hunt is invisibility.
- If you want to take your flight searches to the next level, use a VPN (virtual private network) service to mask your location. There are times that airlines will adjust or offer better airfare deals based on the local market. Factors such as affluence of your region or demand for the destinations you are searching for can affect the price you see. I use NordVPN for this.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Airline Deals 2019
Top airlines offer exclusive airfare deals for travel in the upcoming months on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If it isn’t apparent already, I’m advocating you skip the mall this season and explore the world instead.
As of now, the best-announced airline deals are from JetBlue, American Airlines, Aeromexico, United Airlines, Frontier Airlines, and Spirit Airlines. Below is a list of the major airlines (with links to Skyscanner’s guide) with planned Black Friday and Cyber Monday flight sales.
Airfare Deals and Cheap Flights
Is Black Friday and Cyber Monday really a good time to book flights? This is a common question. The Skyscanner.com data from previous years suggest that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were the cheapest days to book international flights from the United States, rather than Travel Tuesday or later in December.
Many airfare deals to be offered on Black Friday or Cyber Monday will not be posted or will post within 24 hours of the day. This guide will not be complete until the day before! So check back regularly during Black Friday weekend for updates, subscribe to the blog and bookmark this page. Also, I will be posting them on social media as announced! Like me on Facebook here.
Remember what I said earlier about staying flexible with your destinations on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Good! Now, I’m going to give you a list of both domestic and international destinations that will have great deals but don’t limit yourself to just these destinations because there will be others.
Top Domestic Destinations:
- New York City
- Denver
- Los Angeles
- Las Vegas
- Washington
- Miami
- Chicago
- San Francisco
- Orlando
- Atlanta
Top International Destinations:
- San Jose Cabo, Mexico
- Toronto, Canada
- Paris, France
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Montreal, Canada
- Vancouver, Canada
- Havana, Cuba
- London, UK
- Cancun, Mexico
- Mexico City, Mexico
If any of those destinations are on your travel list, then you will be finding great deals.
Skyscanner.com
DEAL: Skyscanner.com is one of my favorite travel research and deal-finding websites. They have a Black Friday 2019 and Cyber Monday 2019 page dedicated to tracking the best deals!
Finding the best flight deals on Skyscanner.com is easy.
- On the homepage, start by entering your home airport. Remember, you may want to use several local airports to conduct your search.
- Enter “Everywhere” as the destination.
- For the dates, select “Cheapest month” to find the best prices. If you have a particular month in mind, select “Whole month” and the month.
After you search, you will find a list of the cheapest countries you can fly to from your home airport with the cheapest dates available.
The less flexible you are, the less likely you will be to find the flash flight sales. If you are looking for a travel deal to a specific destination with set dates, it probably won’t happen. Flexibility is your key to the world.
Set your price alerts now!
You won’t know you are getting a good deal without setting up price alerts in advance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Conduct some searches today using Skyscanner or Google Flights to familiarize yourself with the baseline fares.
One way of navigating the tricky landscape of booking cheap flights is by setting up price alerts for flights. With price alerts, you are notified daily of price fluctuations and will know if flight deals are truly deals.
A nice thing about Google Flights or Kayak is they actually give you a price range estimate. The Hopper app is really great for this and what I primarily use on top of Skyscanner and Google Flights.
Flying to Europe? Just cross the Atlantic first.
I make frequent trips to Europe for less than what most people spend on flights to Mexico. Like everything else, the key is staying flexible on the destination.
The great thing about Europe is how connected it is logistically. Rather by train or another flight, getting around in Europe is very cheap (and quick). So if you are eyeing a certain destination, first focus on just getting anywhere within Europe then focus on the logistics.
This year, look at Iceland, France, or the United Kingdom for great deals. Those will have the cheapest airfare deals. Then go from there.
Norwegian Airlines is a great low cost, long haul service. This year, the airline is offering 15 percent off its economy fares for ALL routes and 10 percent off on premium-class fares. The deal must be booked between November 29 and December 2, 2019, for travel between December 1, 2019, and March 28, 2020.
2020 Season Routes:
- Austin—London: Four weekly flights (up from three weekly in summer 2019)
- Boston—Paris: Five weekly flights (up from four weekly)
- Denver—London: Four weekly flights (up from three weekly)
- Denver—Paris: Four weekly flights (up from three weekly)
- Fort Lauderdale—Oslo: Three weekly flights (up from twice weekly)
- Los Angeles—Barcelona: Daily flights (up from six weekly)
- Los Angeles—Madrid: Five weekly flights (up from four weekly)
- Los Angeles—Paris: Ten weekly flights (up from daily)
- Los Angeles—Rome: Five weekly flights (up from four weekly)
- New York—Paris: Nine weekly flights (up from daily)
- Oakland—Oslo: Three weekly flights (up from twice weekly)
- San Francisco—Barcelona: Four weekly flights (up from three weekly)
- San Francisco—London: Daily flights (up from five weekly)
- Tampa—London: Three weekly flights (up from twice weekly)
Miles are travel currency
Not all airlines are offering deeply discounted airfares. However, some are offering miles and miles are travel currency. These offers are definitely worth a mention here.
Air France and KLM are offering to triple the number of miles you earn flying their qualified routes between December 7, 2019, and March 31, 2020. Which in a way, is extending your discounted airfares to a second trip abroad. You have until December 2, 2019, to book a flight with Air France or KLM and earn triple miles.
