Travel is Back: Where are all of the Deals?

As most everyone is seeing and hearing, travelers are back and ready to get back out and see the world. And along with that, it seems so many travelers are expecting travel deals and bargains. So...where are all of the bargains?

For some reason, a lot of would-be travelers are under the impression that hotels and airlines and rental car companies have become desperate due to the dismal 2020 travel season. They think their desperation will make them offer deals and bargains like never before. Well let's clear that misbelief up right now.

If anything, the travel companies "desperation" has resulted in record-setting higher travel costs and we are not close to the ceiling yet. Airlines are trying to fill seats but they are not offering cheap fares to get them filled. They instead are canceling less than full flights and re-routing passengers through more popular hubs. In some cases, we are seeing airfare to places like Mexico break the $1000 and now even the $2000 per passenger mark. Typical airfare for COACH class to Mexico or other parts of the Caribbean during the holiday season would be somewhere close to the $600 to $800 per person range. Not this year. For some going between Christmas and NY's, airfare is costing over $2300 per person for a direct flight to Cancun.

Hotel's are still dealing with cut capacity in so many places. Since only half of the hotel's rooms can be sold...they are not willing to give those rooms away, especially in popular places like Florida, Montana, Arizona etc. Room's that once were around the $300 to $500 per night mark are now closer to $700 to $1000 per night. That is if you can find availability.

And forget about it when it comes to rental cars. A COMPACT car that would have cost anywhere between $30 to $50 per day is now $100 to $200 per day in so many cities. And that again assumes you can even get a rental car because most rental car companies sold off their inventory last Spring to avoid complete bankruptcy.

So yes...travel is open to a lot of places, but please do not plan on finding a travel 'deal" anytime soon.