Why Some Families Are Getting Priced Out of Spring Break
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Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, March 7th. I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. The number of people planning to go on a vacation has dropped to its lowest level since 2021.

according to the conference board's recent Consumer Confidence Index. And many travelers say that rising prices are to blame. There's threats of tariffs. Inflation has been stubborn and persistent. And so people are just feeling it in their budget where they still do want to travel. And we're not seeing a mass cancellation of trips, for example, but people are having to work harder to make it affordable. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Allison Pohle.

about how some travelers are doing just that after the break.

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High prices are starting to impact a growing number of would-be vacationers. But are there still deals out there? Wall Street Journal travel reporter Alison Pohle joins me.

Allison, where has the rising cost of travel left everyday consumers? It's left them in a spot where they need to work harder to find a deal. So what we see is that wealthy Americans are continuing to spend big and they're often going to international destinations. And that's why we see a lot of demand to Europe and places like Japan, for example.

And so what are some of the things that are fueling that? There's a lot of economic anxiety right now. There's threats of tariffs. Inflation has been stubborn and persistent. And so people are just feeling it in their budget where they still do want to travel. And we're not seeing a mass cancellation of trips, for example, but people are having to work harder to make it affordable. Spring breaks around the corner, summer vacations. People are still planning to go on these trips.

How are they covering the cost? Sometimes they're trading down hotels. So maybe they're staying at a two-star hotel instead of a three- or four-star hotel. Maybe they're going for a shorter amount of time or even taking a road trip instead of taking a flight. And so what we saw is that the average round-trip ticket during spring break

so mid-March to mid-April, averaged $820 for domestic cities. And that's up 7% from last year, according to AAA booking data. That's like a Europe flight price. Right? And then for international cities, it averaged $1,440. That's up 2% from last year. Not as dramatic. For budget-conscious travelers who...

Just got their PTO approved and they still want to go on this trip and they want to be able to afford it. What kinds of deals or promos should they be on the lookout for?

So if you sign up for travel newsletters or for different airline emails, you can get notified of these deals. But they're not going to be during the peak time. So it's not going to be the Saturday to Saturday flight or even Friday to Friday that everyone's looking for. You might have to fly on a random Tuesday and come back on Saturday, for example. So off-peak times do have deals.

There are tons of deals out there where there are low fares. So another thing to keep in mind is, yes, you might be able to get a low fare pack light because once you start adding those bags on, then the charges start to pile up. Recently, I found this super low fare for a flight to Amsterdam.

It is midday on a Monday. Okay. But that's my trade-off. Are you going to do it? I'm going to do it. Good for you. See, there we go. Yeah. The flight that I got was on, I think it was JetBlue or American, one of those airlines. Are there still deals to be had on no-frills airlines like Frontier and Spirit? How are those prices faring?

Those airlines have been a bit more cautious just because they're working to be profitable. So we actually saw that Spirit for its basic base fare just brought back change and cancellation fees. They had gotten rid of those last year, and they just brought those back. So that's something to be careful of. Yes, there are still deals on those flights. But if you are booking the lowest possible fare, some penalties have been reintroduced. What about baggage fees?

Baggage fees still exist on those. And the general rule with baggage fees is to book your bags as soon as you buy the ticket because on these cheaper airlines, the cost actually goes up. The closer you get to the flight, it's not going to go down. So on the no-frills carriers, purchase –

There are bundled prices now where you can purchase your seat selection fee and the bag fee right at the beginning. That's going to be the cheapest, most affordable option. What are some other tools and techniques that people still use to try to land that flight if you're determined to take an international trip this year? There are deals to be had.

A lot of airlines this past year had to discount seats because they added so much demand and so much capacity to Europe that they needed to make sure let's actually make money on these flights and make sure that they're full. So there were discounts on flights to Europe. If you are a newer traveler, sign up for the rewards program and start picking an airline. There's a lot of talk about how

They're diminishing returns from loyalty programs. But you should look at points and miles redemption. Sign up for the program anyways. Get those flights logged so that you do start accumulating miles and look for deals. If it's too expensive, try looking at the point or mileage redemption and there might be something there.

Even if it's partial points and then you just pay the rest. Exactly. Some airlines have that where you can book in miles and money. What about domestic flights? You spoke about how expensive they're getting, especially now. I can't even imagine an $800 flight for spring break. So how can you get some deals there?

This isn't the best answer, but don't travel during the peak time. If these spring break flights are going to bust your wallet, don't take the spring break flight. Look for a cheaper deal in the summer.

when you might have more flexibility. I don't mean to say don't travel because there are deals out there, but when flights are averaging as high as they are, it's really tough to wait it out because the price is only going to go up at a certain point where that's just what the price is going to be. And you can try to take a last minute flight.

if the price drops a couple days before. But that's really not feasible for most people. My advice would be to monitor prices and go at a time when you have some more flexibility in the dates that you're leaving. Spring break is just really tough because it's that one week. Airlines know that so they can price accordingly.

That's WSJ reporter Alison Pohle. And that's it for your Money Briefing. Tomorrow, we'll have our weekly markets wrap up, What's News in Markets. And then we'll be back on Monday. This episode was produced by Zoe Culkin. I'm your host, Arianna Aspuru. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors.

and Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening. ♪