NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to a new sampling of airline tickets purchased in November by
priceline.com customers for travel around Christmas, priceline.com
(Nasdaq: PCLN) said today that average airline ticket prices have
declined slightly in the past few weeks.
Travelers can still expect to pay $25 to $50 more than last year for a
holiday airline ticket. However, when priceline.com conducted its first
survey of holiday ticket prices, based on tickets purchased in October,
average ticket prices were running $50 to $100 higher than last year.
“The recent dip in prices is certainly good
news for travelers who haven’t firmed up their
holiday travel plans,” said Mark Koehler,
priceline.com’s Senior Vice President, Airline
Ticketing. “However, travelers would be
well-advised to buy their tickets now, since prices are likely to start
rising again as we get closer to the holidays.”
Priceline.com is one of the nation’s
best-known online sellers of airline tickets, giving consumers more ways
to save than any other major online travel reservation service. In
addition to its regular airline ticketing service, which provides
customers with a great way to find and select the lowest priced flights
for the dates, times and airlines they want to fly, priceline.com also
offers its famous Name Your Own Price® airline
tickets service, where customers can choose their own price and save up
to 40% off the regular published prices found on other travel sites.
Also today, priceline.com updated its annual Best Days To Fly Calendar,
which shows the days when travelers can expect to pay the least –
and the most – for their holiday airline
tickets. To see the calendar live, visit www.priceline.com/bestdays.
For Christmas, travelers will find the lowest fares for the following
trip combinations:
-- Depart December 24, return December 26, 27, 28 or 29.
-- Depart December 21, return December 26, 27 and 28.
-- Depart December 23, return December 26 and 28.
Travelers will pay the highest fare for a trip departing Friday,
December 22, and returning Saturday, December 30. According to
priceline.com, December 21, 22, 23, 26, 27 and 30 are currently the
heaviest air travel days for the upcoming holiday.
About Priceline.com® Incorporated
Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) operates priceline.com, a
leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure
travelers, and Priceline Europe, a leading European online hotel
reservation service.
In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their
airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises
than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting all the
best published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using
priceline.com’s TripFilter™
advanced search technology, create packages to save even more money, and
take advantage of priceline.com’s famous Name-Your-Own-Price®
service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.
Priceline Europe operates one of Europe’s
fastest growing hotel reservation services through its Booking.com
network of hotel reservation services, Activehotels.com and
priceline.co.uk. Priceline Europe operates in 40 countries in 12
languages and offers its customers in Europe and the U.S. access to
approximately 25,000 participating European hotels.
Priceline.com also operates the following travel websites:
Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com.
Priceline.com also has a personal finance service that offers home
mortgages, refinancing and home equity loans through an independent
licensee. Priceline.com licenses its business model to independent
licensees, including priceline mortgage and certain international
licensees.
