Is there such a thing as a last-minute Christmas travel bargain?
The unfortunate reality of Christmas is that when most people have time off and the desire to get away, the higher demand means airfare prices are at a premium.
Australia’s largest travel agency, Flight Centre, has introduced innovative technology that analyses over 16 billion flight itineraries each day to highlight the best airfares for travel over the Christmas period for stays between four and 14 days.
How can Santa afford it!? (Image: Getty)
The helpful guide uses data refreshed every 12 hours to highlight the optimal dates for travel between 16 December and 7 January in order to score the lowest airfare.
For example, travellers from Sydney looking to visit Bali during the festive season should consider the travel dates 2-6 January, as this period has been found to be the cheapest.
Visit your local Flight Centre store or call 131 600 for more advice and the latest Christmas travel deals.
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Flight Centre’s Tom Walley said people want a holiday at this time of year, but want to know when and where to go for a good deal.
“Christmas is peak travel time and with that, airfares are much higher. Our customers just want to know, of all the high prices, what is the best value airfare they can get,” Mr Walley said.
“The system provides a quick and simple snapshot of the lowest priced travel dates to popular destinations without travellers needing to search multiple dates and departures across various websites to find something suitable.
“At a glance, you can see when to travel to get the cheapest rate and proceed from there.”
Fly to Bali at the beginning of January for the cheapest airfares (Image: Getty)
The system uses dynamic pricing from a range of airfare aggregators, plus pricing from low-cost carriers for domestic and international destinations.
“What we’re offering is analysis of the best fares our customers have found over the last 24 hours and surfacing the best dates to book to access the lowest prices,” Mr Walley said.
