The Best Day of the Week to Book a Flight, According to Expedia

Holiday travel season is right around the corner. If you have not booked your flights yet, you should not wait much longer.

But if you have the luxury of taking your time to plan a future trip, booking your flight on a Sunday might help you save a bit of cash.

Travelers who book on Sundays save up to 13% on their flight, on average, compared to booking on the most expensive day, according to new research by travel website Expedia.

Booking a flight on a Friday is likely to leave you paying the highest fare.

Expedia based its findings on round-trip ticket prices for January through August that were sourced from the global airline sales database of Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) and flight data from OAG.

Additional findings from the Expedia analysis include:

• Book domestic flights 28 days before departure. This saves travelers up to 24% compared to booking at the last minute.
• Book international flights around 60 days before departure. Not only will you save about 10%, on average, but you should have more options.
• Travel on a Thursday. You can save up to 16% compared to traveling on a Sunday, the most expensive day on which to travel.
• Depart before 3 p.m. Flights that depart after this time have a 50% higher chance of being canceled.

Whenever you book your flight, you should save a bit of money compared to last year.

In a summary of Expedia’s findings, Chuck Thackston — managing director of data science and research at ARC — says airlines continue to add more capacity and service to meet a growing demand for air travel:

“Air travel has proven resilient over the past few years, with travelers increasingly taking to the skies for both business and leisure. Fortunately for those travelers, the cost of airfare has been below 2022 levels for most of the year.”