Last-minute travel deals are disappearing

Let's face it: If you're going to book a trip at the last minute, you're going to get leftovers. As anyone who's been late for Thanksgiving dinner knows, if you dawdle, the choice bits are going to be gone by the time you get there.

That doesn't mean there aren't bargains just days before departure. But the sorts of great deals that emerged in 2000 and 2001 are getting harder to find — and many of those that remain have to be booked 10 days or so in advance instead of just a few days.

Don't be surprised if your choices are limited to inconvenient flights, long layovers, hotels far from the center of action — and higher prices.

Tips for last-minute travel


Book early. Especially if your heart is set on a particular destination. Even a week will make a difference. American Airlines posts deals on Tuesdays for departure on Saturday a week and a half later. site59.com/">www.site59.com begins posting packages two weeks out. The best deals get snapped up within hours.

Seasonal deals. You'll find the best prices in the Caribbean in late summer/early fall; for Europe, late fall and winter; for New York, the first part of the year; for Caribbean cruises, September and October. It's hardest to find bargains in the summer and around the holidays, when families are traveling and planes are flying full.

Cheaper flights. Friday and Saturday are often the busiest, most expensive days for flying; Sunday, Monday and Tuesday tend to be cheaper.

Try another airport. Sometimes flying out of another airport near home or into an airport near but not at your final destination can save you money in cheaper fares.

Hotel rates. If you're going to a business-oriented city like Chicago or Washington, D.C., hotel rates will be lowest on weekends, when business people and politicians leave town. In resort towns, rates will be lower mid-week.

Booking a room. If you're booking your hotel separately, check Web deals, then call the hotel directly — not the chain's 800 number — and see whether you can negotiate with the manager for a better price. A number of chains will match rates you find elsewhere.

Over the last six months, I booked three last-minute trips four to 10 days in advance. I was betting that by buying a plane seat and a hotel room that were days away from staying empty, I could get a great discount on a weekend adventure.

As part of the deal, I had to be flexible. If Memphis had the cheapest fares and hotel rooms, I'd be happy to spend a few days eating barbecue and prowling Beale Street. If Boston had the best deal, I'd love to walk the Freedom Trail. And if Punta Cana were a bargain, I'd always wanted to try an all-inclusive.

More than you'd think

But each time, as I scanned "deals" to a dozen or more cities, I repeatedly found that the trips were more expensive than if I'd made my reservations earlier. Seats on nonstop flights had filled up, and the flights were likely to leave before dawn or arrive at my weekend getaway past dinnertime.

That doesn't surprise Pauline Frommer, travel-guide author and former travel editor for MSNBC.com, who says the heyday of last-minute bargains is in the past.

"I wish I could tell everybody that last-minute travel is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's what I used to tell people three years ago," Frommer said. "But that's not true anymore."

Early-bird bargains

Today it's a lot easier to find early-bird deals than last-minute discounts, said Aaron Brown, a travel-deal expert at Travelzoo, which compiles listings of bargains.

"If you have to travel last minute, you're typically going to have to pay higher prices," he said.

That wasn't the case as we entered the new millennium.

The backstory

The advent of the Internet changed the way people booked travel, Frommer said. Consumers who used to rely on travel agents — who pushed booking in advance — became comfortable buying plane tickets and reserving hotels on the Internet and making those purchases much closer to their departure date.

Fearing that airplane seats and hotel rooms would go empty, hotels and airlines offered discounts for spur-of-the-moment getaways.

Last-minute travel became an industry, spawning online travel agencies like site59.com and last-minute.com, while Travelocity, Orbitz and Expedia added last-minute components to their Web sites.

Then, about 2003, hotels and airlines adjusted to the public's new travel habits and learned to manage their inventory better, Frommer said, and those last-minute super deals became less common.

Finding the deals

I'm not a last-minute traveler by nature — I like the security of reservations and locked-in prices.

But as 2006 began, I realized that construction at my house, the threat of hurricanes and a harried pace would make last-minute trips a better bet for me this year. The trick: Finding well-priced options that fit my needs.

Last-minute deals may not be as deeply discounted as they were a few years ago, but bargains can still be found, said Jeff Varhol, general manager of site59.com, a Travelocity subsidiary that deals exclusively in weekend travel packages offered up to two weeks before departure. One piece of evidence: Site59.com started in 2000 with only 100 airlines, hotels, car rental agencies and other suppliers. Today it works with 4,000.