Memorial Day weekend hit a new record since the pandemic started, with 2.74 million people traveling on that Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). With high demand of traveling, low seat supply, and, of course, inflation, flights this summer will be more expensive than usual. However, there is a new way to save some money when buying flights: Kayak released a travel tool called Best Time to Travel.
The tool allows you to compare pricing against crowds, weather, and seasonality to pick the best time to travel and when to book your next trip. If you think this sounds similar to Hopper or Google flights, let’s explore how it differs.
How is Kayak’s Best Time to Travel different than Hopper or Google Flights?
You probably know how Google Flights works: You set your airports and dates and get a bunch of flight options—but it doesn’t give you recommendations on when and why a certain destination is best to travel. And Hopper is similar to Kayak in the sense that it tells you the best time to purchase tickets and when to fly to get the best deal—but it doesn’t consider the same variables that Kayak’s new tool does.
Best Time to Travel takes into account average flight prices, popularity, average temperature, and average precipitation as factors when generating a recommendation for you—neither of which Hopper nor Google Flights does. Once it spits out your results, it explains why it arrived to its conclusion, like so:
You’ll be able to see a breakdown of the average, minimum, and maximum flight prices for every month of the year for your destination to help you narrow down the best time to travel. Then you can go to the calendar view to see which days would be the cheapest. Once you figure that out, the tool will recommend the best time to book your flights to get the lowest fare.
Screenshot: Ballantines PR
Is Best Time to Travel better than Google Flights or Hopper?
It’s certainly a different tool than Google Flights, but it renders Hopper redundant. Best Time to Travel does not give you actual current fares for flights, like Google Flights does—it just gives predictions. So it’s no substitute for Google Flights; rather, it is a travel tool that complements Google Flights and should be kept in your arsenal.
How can I use Kayak’s Best Time to Travel?
To use Kayak’s Best Time to Travel, follow these steps:
Enter your destination and learn the best month to go: Enter your home airport, final destination, and length of travel. In return, Kayak will find the best month for you to visit based on price, crowds, weather and more.Narrow down your travel dates: Once you’ve locked down the best month to visit, use Kayak’s calendar view to figure out the cheapest days to fly.
Time your booking window to maximize savings: With your travel month and dates picked, Kayak’s tool will narrow down the best day to book both your flight and hotel by before prices rise.
Keep in mind that Best Time to Travel’s results might not be the most accommodating (you might have layovers and red-eye flights with airlines that will not give you loyalty points). However, figuring out when to travel and when to book are the most important nuggets of information you can get from this tool. And you don’t have to book through Kayak; once you know when to fly and book, use whatever search engine or airline you prefer to actually book your flights.
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