Passengers, Prepare for Takeoff (of Your Holiday Airfares)

Add to the list of things that cost way more in 2026 than they did last year: Holiday plane tickets. Booking site Hopper says domestic round-trip fares for Thanksgiving are up 31% from 2025, with Christmas tickets 23% higher—the steepest holiday prices in at least a decade. Airlines, hit by jet fuel costs that have nearly doubled since February, are pushing through fare hikes (some recently tacked on $10 each way) and say demand is holding, reports the Wall Street Journal. "It seems all but certain that travelers will now be looking back on 2025 with fondness as a golden era of relative value and travel efficiency," muses Jim Vorel at Jezebel.

The airfare piece of the consumer-price index in September was up 22.4% from a year earlier. Travelers can blunt the impact by timing purchases—typically three to five weeks ahead for Thanksgiving (ie, now or in the next five minutes)—and avoiding the Sunday after the holiday, Nov. 29, when return flights average $604. Still, as Hopper's chief economist Hayley Berg puts it: "Most Americans see their holiday travel as something essential."