Why Last-minute Flights Are So Expensve

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We’ve all been there—a flight you keep meaning to book and keep putting off. All of a sudden it’s two weeks away and you still don’t have tickets. You keep hoping for a last-minute miracle, and the universe keeps responding with higher and higher fares. What gives?  Last-minute flights = expensive flights It’s logical to assume that last-minute fares should go down in price. After all, an empty seat generates nothing for an airline, so why wouldn’t they want to keep cutting the price as takeoff nears? Even $50 > $0, right? That was the conventional wisdom for decades. But beginning in the early 1970s, airlines began realizing that people booking last-minute flights generally weren’t vacationers. Instead, it was businesspeople who didn’t schedule meetings months in advance the way leisure travelers schedule vacations. And while us leisure travelers care a lot about airfare—any dollar we spend on a flight is a dollar we can’t spend on something else—business travelers just don’t care. Why should they? It’s their company paying. So if last-minute bookings are made by businesspeople who don’t care what it costs, the optimal strategy from the airlines' perspective isn’t to slash fares; it’s to jack up fares and gouge business travelers. That makes them the most money, even if it means leaving some seats empty. The takeaway for us leisure travelers: don’t count on cheap last-minute or standby flights popping up. Instead, expect that last-minute fares will skyrocket.  Not all last-minute flights are equal We're a broken record about booking during Goldilocks Windows because that’s when cheap flights are most likely to pop up. (For domestic flights it’s 1-3 months in advance, 2-8 months for international, and add a couple months for peak season dates.) Don’t book too late because fares go up. But not all last-minute flights are the same. A flight booked one month in advance is almost certainly going to be cheaper than a flight booked one week in advance. And a flight booked one week in advance is almost always cheaper than a flight booked one day in advance. So if there’s a flight you need and you still haven’t booked a month out, your best bet is almost certainly to purchase ASAP. Holding out hope for a late price drop is a sure way to wind up overpaying.  Budget airlines are most likely to have reasonable last-minute fares Even if you basically never fly on budget airlines like Spirit, the one time to consider making an exception is if you need a last-minute flight. Think back to why last-minute fares tend to be so pricey: it’s because airlines want to gouge business travelers. But business travelers rarely fly on Spirit. Ditto with Frontier, Allegiant, and other ultra-low-cost carriers. As a result, last-minute flights tend to be much more affordable on budget airlines that primarily cater to leisure travelers.  The big pandemic-era exception Despite a surging interest in travel as countries drop restrictions, the number of people traveling internationally is still down from pre-pandemic levels, and that rate at which airlines are adding more seats and flights is still outpacing demand. This means that—for now—it’s still possible to find good deals relatively last minute for international trips, especially to Europe. So if you haven’t yet booked an international trip for this summer you could still find a great fare (so long as you’re flexible on exactly where and when you go). Here are some examples of deals we found just this month for summer travel: Iceland for $493 nonstop roundtrip all summer Myrtle Beach for $138 roundtrip in June and August Mexico City for $224 roundtrip all summer Hawaii for $381 roundtrip in August Chile for $554 roundtrip in August Malta for $2,518 roundtrip in business class in July and August Amsterdam from $2,390 roundtrip in business class all summer