Strategizing your travel ahead of Thanksgiving

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Eric Rosen of The Points Guy shares how you can strategize your Thanksgiving Day travel. He shares when's the best time to travel either by car or in the air and how to respond to weather impacts.

Transcript

00:00We are weeks away from Thanksgiving and many of us will be flying or driving to visit family and

00:06friends. Whether you're taking the airways or the highways, here with some insight for travelers

00:11is Eric Rosen. He is a content director of the Point Sky, the travel website. Thanks for joining

00:18us today, Eric. And boy, busiest travel time of the year. So if you're looking for flights and

00:24you're flexible, what are some strategies to plan a trip this Thanksgiving? Absolutely. According

00:32to a recent study that we conducted with Harris Polls, over half of Americans are going to travel

00:36for Thanksgiving this year. So the roads and the airports are going to be clogged with people.

00:41The busiest travel days tend to be the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving and then

00:45the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So if you can avoid traveling on those specific days, maybe

00:50wait to drive till Thursday morning for Thanksgiving itself and then head back on

00:54Friday or Saturday. Or if you can work remotely, wait until the following week to book your flights

00:59back or to take to the roads. You're going to have a better chance at not having your travel plans go

01:04awry or having to brave tons of crowds in the airports or on the roads with you. And with some

01:11new rules that have been implemented at some airlines, what advice do you have for travelers

01:16if bad weather disrupts their travel plans? Absolutely. You have to be your own best advocate

01:22in these circumstances, right? If you don't have your airline app, make sure to download it so that

01:26you can get status updates on your flights. Chances are this will be the first way that an airline

01:32will contact you if your plans are going to go off the rails and also an easier way to rebook through

01:38those apps. The other thing is you can arm yourself with a little more information aside from the

01:41airline apps through a site or an app like FlightAware, which oftentimes has updates a

01:46little earlier even sometimes than airlines tend to update their app when weather strikes. You can

01:51also purchase things like travel insurance. Some credit cards come with trip insurance,

01:56trip interruption, trip cancellation insurance in case something happens. So you just want to make

02:01sure that you're covered one way or another. I would also suggest booking flights early in the

02:05day, which are less likely to be canceled or delayed. Once those cancellations or delays

02:09start piling up, it just cascades. And then you could be looking at days of being stranded in a

02:14city or an airport that you're not familiar with. All right. Some of us will be driving

02:19for the holiday. What are the tips to beat the worst of the travel delays?

02:26Absolutely. As I mentioned, the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving are the busiest

02:29days for people to hit the road. If you're going to leave one of those days, do it early in the

02:34morning, as early in the day as you can to beat that rush hour traffic, especially later in the

02:38afternoon. If you can drive Thanksgiving Day itself, the roads are less likely to be crowded

02:43with other travelers heading home for Thanksgiving. And then the Sunday after Thanksgiving is that

02:48busiest day as well. It'll be in the roads as well as in the airport. So if you can leave on

02:53Saturday instead or prolong your trip into the following week, if that's something you have

02:57flexibility to do, you're going to encounter fewer traffic jams.

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