Top 10 Thanksgiving Air Travel Tips

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Is stress-free holiday travel possible?  Remove the stress from your Thanksgiving holiday travel with these Top 10 Thanksgiving Air Travel Tips.  OK, maybe we can’t remove all the stress, but this is a start!

1)  Do everything you can online.  Print your boarding pass.  Pay for your checked luggage.  Anything you can do at home will shorten your wait at the airport.  Just don’t forget to bring your receipts with you.

2)  Reserve your parking space online before you travel.  There are numerous sites where you can guarantee you will have a parking space at an airport lot.

3)  Underpack to avoid checking a bag.  I hope your family will forgive you if you wear the same sweater twice.  You will be thankful you didn’t have to check a bag.  Use the $25 or $50 you save on checked bag fees to buy yourself a new sweater once you get home.

4)  Pack a snack (My favorite is Uncrustables frozen pb & j sandwiches.  Take them out of the freezer, throw them in your bag, and they’ll be ready to eat mid-flight when everyone else is starving).

5)  Hydrate. Bring an empty refillable water bottle & fill it up at the airport (after security).  Airplanes and airports are dry, so you want to stay hydrated.  Save money on plastic bottles, and save the planet.

6)  Arrive at the airport at least 2 hours early.  Seriously.  With the new body scanners at the airport, expect security lines to increase.  People around you will be late and panicky.  Don’t be one of them.  Laugh at them.

7)  If your flight is overbooked, do not give up your seat unless they will give you a confirmed seat on the next flight.  Thanksgiving season is too busy to travel standby.

8)  Relax. Security lines may be long.  There may be snow.  There may be delays.  Bring a book or some relaxing music.  No matter how bad it may seem, it probably beats driving.

9)  You’re not too late to book. The world wants to fly on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and come back on Sunday.  If you’re flexible, you can still score great deals for departures on Thursday or Friday with a return flight on Saturday.  Planes are half empty those days, so you can almost guarantee yourself a relaxing journey.

10)  When picking up someone from the airport, use the cell phone lot instead of driving to the terminal.  Most airports have a lot where you can park your car for free & wait for a call from the passenger that they have arrived.  Before you leave home (or on your cell phone), track their flight on flightaware.com to see when their plane actually departed and when it is expected to arrive.