Airfare Trends for 2026

Foreign.

And welcome to the Farmer Travel show and Happy New Year.

His name is Jesse Newgarten.

He is the founder and CEO of Dollar Flight Club.

Hey, Jesse.

Welcome to the Farmer Travel Show.

Thanks, Pauline.

So nice to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Well, my pleasure.

So in a NutShell, what does Dollar Flight Club do?

How does it work?

We have one goal in mind.

We want to save our members as much money as humanly possible on every flight they take.

That's what we do.

That's our motto.

The way we do it is very simple.

You tell us your home airports, where you want to fly out to of you tell us where you generally want to go.

And then we look at thousands of routes daily, millions of fares every year, and email and send you a text alert when we find really good deals to places that you want to go.

And, and then all you have to do is decide, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to book and go on your way.

And that's what we do.

Really high level.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And you save people a lot of money.

And one of the rules, I was really, I was impressed that you included it, but also surprised because, because it seems to undercut your business model.

You say in the piece that because of AI, these last minute sales, these surprise sales, these maybe mistake fairs, that, that cut the cost, the window for getting those is shrinking because of AI.

Right, that's.

That's exactly right.

So, you know, AI is really, they're, you know, they are compressing these deal windows.

So, you know, in the past deals would be available.

We'd see it, you know, say New York to Rome for $300 and we'd send it to our members and it'd be available for a couple of days.

Right.

And that is an outstanding deal to book, you know, on, on a great airline.

But today with AI in the mix, you know, when these deals pop up, they're just so optimized that it's not, it's not days anymore, it's hours that they're available.

So, you know, it just makes it a little tougher and it, you know, it's on us to make sure our members know that when we send a deal, you know, take a Look, as soon as you see it, you know, just pause what you're doing for a second.

If it's really a place you want to go and there's things that you can do to kind of get past that, right.

It's Most airlines have 24 hour cancellation for absolutely free.

You know that that's a rule here in the US So if you see a deal and you think you might want to go, just book it.

You know, book it if the flight's right and then you have 24 hours to make a decision.

No, no issues getting a refund or cancel it.

That's a law here in the US So it's a really great way to get around just what AI is doing here to these pricing mechanisms.

Right.

Are you going to be shifting at all how you contact your subscribers with these deals so that they really understand they have to book very quickly?

Yeah, we are.

So in the past we only sent emails.

So we would just email you and obviously everyone's busy, they're at work, they have hundreds of emails coming in.

But now what we do is we send you an SMS alert.

If it's something that you really care about, you know, you tell us, hey, these are the top five places I want to go.

So maybe there's, you know, you have a bucket list.

So whatever's on the bucket list, if we find a deal to one of those places, we're going to send you a text message so that you do not miss it.

Because that is not what we want to happen.

So we changed a little bit.

You know, everyone in travel is obviously having to change quite a bit, particularly in the past couple of years with how fast AI has, has been going and next year it'll probably go even faster.

So we just all have to adapt and use it to our advantage, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

But there is some good news in travel.

You start by talking about the low cost long haul budget airlines, airlines such as Norse and Frenchbee, both of which I have flown.

And you say that these airlines are really shifting the market for low cost fares.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it's really good for budget travelers and really everyone in the market.

Right.

You know, the way it works is, you know these low cost airlines, the ones you mentioned, they come in and, you know, Delta's selling a flight from LA to Paris for $900 round trip in economy.

And what French bees come in is they're coming in, they're saying, well, it's actually $300 or $200, but if you want to select A seat.

If you want to do all these other things, it's going to, it's going to add up to maybe 600.

But what they've done is they forced all the other airlines to, to introduce other type of fare classes like basic economy, things like that, where now they're having to compete and, you know, strip fares out.

So you can still.

So now what it's done is it's just dropped the prices across the board a little bit, which is really good for consumers.

And I think that will be really.

Yeah.

Gotta say, I was a little nervous before I flew Norse because the price was so damn low.

I thought, you know, will this be a terrible flight?

And it was just fine.

It was like any other flight.

French B, I didn't like as much and I felt very sorry for the flight attendants because their uniforms are so damn ugly.

But other than that, you know, these carriers are just as aw as the main carriers in terms of no leg room, in terms of, you know, slightly uncomfortable seats.

You know, they're, they're, they're no better, but they're no worse.

I thought.

No, I agree.

I mean, I've flown French B. I also one of the ones I really loved and was just convenient for me was Norwegian when they were still doing international from the US but they're no longer doing that.

And that was a really good one.

I mean, I flew them numerous times.

I used to live in Seattle and they had non stop, I think.

Seattle?

Yeah, Seattle to Europe.

And it was, I think me and my wife, you know, we were even more budget at that point, you know, six years ago.

And we were, it was like, oh, you just fly to fly to Paris for 200, you know, and amazing.

And it's, it's, it was perfect.

It's about the destination, it's not about the flight.

The more you can save on the flight, the better time you can have in the destination.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and yeah, I mean it was, yeah, no, no concern.

Just bring your own, bring your own food and get, get a sandwich.

You're great.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You also say, and I, you may have created a new term here, but I thought this advice was gold.

Gateway flexibility is the ultimate advantage.

So what do you mean by gateway flexibility?

Right, right.

So this is one of the biggest things we talk about at Dollar Flight Club.

You know, we, when you sign up, we don't, we don't really only want you to put one airport in where you Want deals from.

We ask you for a few, you know, we ask you for a few airports, and that's because of this gateway flexibility.

So, you know, there are these various airports that have really the best deals in the United States out of, so New York, Louisiana, Miami, Chicago.

That's where you're going to find the absolute best deals.

If you're thinking about going to Europe, to Asia, Africa, anywhere that's really far and expensive.

But if you live in say, a city like Pittsburgh or something like that, where if you fly from Pittsburgh to Italy, it's probably going to cost you maybe 50% more than if you lived in Pittsburgh and took a quick commute flight from Pittsburgh to New York, maybe stayed there for a night or just flew there in the morning, and then you booked a round trip flight from New York to your destination in Europe, you're going to probably save 50%, 40% there.

You know, I've done this numerous times.

I live in Salt Lake City now.

I have, my grandparents live in, right around Newark Airport.

So it's very common for me to say, okay, I'm flying there, I'm going to stay there the night before and then the night I get back and then fly from there to Europe.

Uh, and the strategy is really becoming a standard part of travel planning and particularly not only talking about cash fares.

Right.

Talking about mile, miles and points.

Because what you can do is if, you know, there's probably not availability to book a mile, a miles or points flight from Salt Lake City to Paris at the rate that you can get from New York to Paris, it's probably not even comparable.

So what you can, you know, it's probably 60,000 points round trip from New York versus 150,000 points from Salt Lake City.

So you can buy a cheap cash fare to New York and then use points for that really expensive part.

And it's a really good way to save.

And it's just.

Yeah, that's really what people are going to have to do.

Yeah.

So let's break this down.

You have to make two bookings.

You can't just say to your search engine, I'm going from Pittsburgh to Paris.

You have to say, I'm going from New York to Paris.

Show me the fares.

And then when you find a really good one, then you find the cheapo fares from Pittsburgh to Paris.

And I would also say this works in Europe sometimes.

If you're going to a secondary city in Europe, if you can find a good flight from say, New York to Paris, and then you need to go to I'm trying to think of a secondary city in Paris, Berlin or you know, a place that doesn't have that many direct flights from the US you can get a real really good low cost carrier in Europe to take you that extra little hop.

Right, Exactly.

But there are some dangers with this, aren't there?

I mean, if you miss your second flight, your first airline is going to wipe their hands of you.

They're not going to do anything for you, right?

No, no.

So it's, you know, this is definitely, there's definitely some risk.

So you know, if you are going to do this, you know, and you know, you're absolutely right.

There's gateway flexibility on the front end and then also where you're going, you know, that's, you have to look at both.

But yeah, I mean the issues come when you usually what I will do is I'll fly the night before into that, into that gateway.

Right.

And have one night somewhere so that I'm not, not having an issue or it's just, you know, I land really early in the morning and then the flight is at night.

Which usually is how the Europe flights to Europe work.

Right.

They're usually at night.

So it usually works out.

But there's some risks and you just need to be okay with that and have maybe some backup plans.

But usually if you can, if you can make it work or a long.

Layover, you know, maybe four hours in the airport.

Exactly, exactly.

Which isn't too bad if you're looking to save money.

This is a good way to get.

Good thing to try.

So yeah, either way now your, your.

Next tip is pretty invis.

I thought not, not, I mean invidious on the airlines part.

You talk about how the, the fact is that base fares have held pretty steady for most airlines, but it's the ancillary fees like checked bags and seat selection that are going through the roof.

And so with that in mind, what's the strategy?

Yeah, so like we were talking about before is, you know, these legacy airlines now are having, they've added new fare classes like basic economy, Delta has like limit, you know they call it limited classes, things like that.

Because what they're doing is then they're just adding on these ancillaries like fees.

So more than ever, bags, seat selection, boarding party are really now driving the real price.

You know, the base fare.

You can think of it as just an entry point.

And if you don't really care about the rest, that is to your benefit.

Right.

If you don't care about your seat Right.

So I think one of the biggest ways you can offset or offset these fees is really just first off, comparing the flights by total cost, not base fare.

So making sure when you're searching and you're looking is make sure it includes the full fare so that you can actually understand that.

Because most people you want to select your seat, if you're going with someone, you need a bag.

Just make sure when you're, when you're comparing initially, you're looking at that.

Number two is just travel light when possible.

You know, if you can go, your traveling light is really good in numerous ways.

One, if, if you're going on a flight where they're charging a lot for a checked bag, you don't have to do that.

Also, if there's any delays, cancellations, and you don't have a check bag, that's really helpful.

So that's a really good one to do.

And then, you know, you can also use cards or perks that cover bags and seats.

So there's some credit card, credit cards that you have, airline credits, and that's a good way to use those.

Right.

So there's a few ways you can offset them.

It's one of the big ways.

It's been my kind of habit to avoid basic economy just because I do want to be able to check to pick my seat.

But recently, the prices, I was going to Europe, the prices were so high compared from basic economy to economy.

The jump was so great that I thought, well, I'm going to look and see how much it costs to pick my seat.

Because I knew I was carry.

I always carry a tiny bag.

I always carry a carry on.

And the price was so much less to pick my seat with basic economy than it would have been to get an economy ticket.

I just went with that.

And sure, you know, I boarded the plane the absolute last person in the terminal, but who cares?

Who cares?

It was a great savings.

You also talk about something that I think will shock travelers because this has always been the basic advice.

Anytime you see a travel expert on tv, they say, go in the off season, go in the off season.

That's how you'll save.

You say in this piece, there's no longer an off season.

Why is that?

Yeah, it's, it's one of the newer things we're seeing and it's definitely unfortunate.

You know, we, we, my wife and I always, you know, our.

Our thing is, you know, going to Europe in September or something.

You know, after all, you know, all the.

Everyone's back in school and everything, and we're just, you know, we're still.

We still paid, you know, recently.

We're still paying, you know, what you would expect to see just in summer.

It's just.

It doesn't drop off a cliff, which is usually what happens.

So, you know, remote work has really flattened demand.

You know, prices just no longer drop because it's September or it's February.

But, you know, there's still value to be found.

You know, it's just tied.

You have to look at specific routes, shorter windows and just not really calendar months.

It just doesn't work like that anymore, unfortunately, which.

That's been a tip forever.

It's not the same.

And, you know, I think part of it, at least in terms of travel to Europe, may have to do with the fact that you're nuts to go to Mediterranean Europe in summer now.

They have had such insane heat waves every summer that I think the hordes that used to go there in summ and then not travel in the fall, it's.

It's flipped.

You just have more people who know that you're not going to enjoy your vacation in Europe if you go during a heat wave.

So people are.

Maybe summer will soon be the off season to Europe.

I don't know.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it's getting.

You know, I was there this last year, and it was.

Honestly, on a map, it was hard to be there, you know, just in the.

When it was.

When there were the heat waves.

And I was tough.

You know, we have.

We have young kids, and they were.

They were definitely just overheating, you know, and it was.

It was a little bit of a struggle to keep them cool, too.

So I could definitely see that.

I mean, again, you know, the way to combat this, this off season that is disappearing is really.

It comes back to that gateway, Gateway shopping.

You know, it's kind of if, you know, say you do want to go to the Mediterranean, you know, and you're flying out of Chicago or something, maybe look from Chicago to anywhere else in Europe, that's maybe just.

It could be 40% less than flying direct into Athens and then you can just take a Ryanair flight or something for 40 bucks from there to Mykonos, and that's a good way that.

So it just comes back to really being creative and being really flexible with where you're flying in and out of and that's those travelers are going to win, you know, next year because all these things are really changing and this is probably the biggest one.

You know, I probably should have put this as number one because this is the one that we always think is the way to go.

And it's not so much anymore, unfortunately.

Yeah, it was a shocker.

You also say that peak prices are stickier, but mid week still wins.

And this is for domestic airfares.

What does that mean?

Yeah, so you know, peak pricing is just, it's still there, but in the mid, mid week is still a place that you can win and save money.

And that's really because, you know, airlines, they make a lot of money from seat and ancillaries like we mentioned.

But a big one is business travel that's particularly growing.

Again you it slowed down in Covid and it's coming back.

And you know, those midweek departures is just, they're cheaper because one business travel is not really happening in the middle of the week.

It's kind of on the tail end.

And then also people don't travel for weekends or long weekends on, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

It's just not, not when they're going, they're going Thursday, Friday, come back Sunday, Monday.

So that's where you're going to see the highest prices.

And what we're seeing in the data is if you look midweek, you're going to see cheaper prices just because airlines are dropping it to fill seats when it's just generally empty.

So that's why we're seeing that.

And you also go into where the steepest discounts are, which are in both secondary airports.

And because long haul trips are so much more volatile.

I mean the swings in prices, I didn't know this that they were so much more volatile volatile than say short domestic hops.

Going from, I don't know, New York to Seoul, South Korea, you'll see greater swings in that.

Talk about some of the air, the secondary airports that have the best prices and maybe if people can just drive a little longer, it's smart to go to those.

Yeah, no, definitely.

You know, it just, it's all about being flexible and just looking at different airports, you know, not feeling stuck to the one that's right around the corner.

Obviously some people need to be, some people are less flexible, but if you can be, it really pays.

And I think these secondary airports, the ones that are near big metros where low cost carriers compete is where you're going to See lower prices, less volatility.

So you can think of places like in, maybe in Chicago, you know, you have Ord and then you have mdw, Right.

Which is, you know, you kind of.

Think of o' Hare versus Midway.

Midway, o' Hara versus Midway, I should know those names like this.

I kind of had a, that's okay.

But yeah, so o', Hare, you can see that they're going to have a lot more volatility because they have, they're more, they're going international.

They have all the big carriers and those are going to have big swings.

But if you look down to Midway, you can see that's where Southwest operates out of and other discount airlines.

And that's where.

And that's right, you know, smack in a big metro, but it's a secondary airport and that's where these low cost carriers are.

And it's just going to be a very different pricing environment and it's going to be to your benefit to really, you know, look there as well.

And there's numerous cities where this is the case.

You know, most big metros have numerous airports.

Yeah.

And you also say the same for Oakland Airport versus going out of San Francisco International.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, you know, probably and even in Cal, you know, in California there's a lot of, lot of those types of opportunities, particularly if you live in Southern California.

So, you know, I grew up in San Diego and you know, we often would, you know, if we're going international, you know, we would, we would look at flying out of lax.

You know, it's an hour and a half, two hour drive.

But that would be something we, we would look at, you know, and there's three, four airports closest to to la.

Right.

You have lax, you have Long beach, there's Santa Ana, there's two others in la.

John Wayne, I think is one of them.

Yeah, yeah, that's Santa Ana.

Yeah, John Wayne, that's in Santa Ana.

Exactly.

So just looking at those secondary ones, not, not only lax, you just have.

So people don't realize how much you can save and by just, by just switching that airport driving a little more.

Right.

This isn't in the piece, but I've been thinking about it so I'm just going to hit you with it.

Recently the Trump administration, the Border Patrol agency has put out a plan.

We're in the middle of a 60 day comment period on it.

The plan is to have foreign travelers coming to the United States in order to get permission to come.

And this is including the European nations and our allies they're going to have to reveal, I think five years worth of social media data.

They're going to have to give over their email addresses.

And I think this is going to cut down on the number of foreign visitors coming into the United States even further.

Do you think that a drop in foreign visitors will cause airfares going out of the country to rise?

What do you think the impact of this could be on, on, on airfares?

Right.

I think the, you know, if there are less travelers coming in, which I think that is what this will do.

I mean it depends on if it happens.

You know, 5% drop or 20% drop.

You know, you're not just going to see prices change on just leaving the, leaving the U.S. you're going to see them all, you know, on, on round trip in any capacity.

Just because what that does is now you have less people on planes, right.

So you have less supply or sorry, less demand.

So you know, it's actually, it could have the opposite effect where it actually helps on the pricing front because you know, usually, you know, there's, they need to see, they need, if they need.

To fill the seats.

Yeah, you're going to have to do is they're going to have to drop, drop the prices.

So that's kind of one, one way to go.

It's hard to know, but that's one way to think about it as a potential obviously or it could percentage I.

Think could, could mean more, you know, left fewer flights.

We'll see.

We'll see.

It's very such an interesting time.

I saw one talking head talking about the K shaped economy, the fact that the very rich are doing much better than they used to and then there's a lot more people who are struggling.

So a K. And because of that a lot of airlines are apparently putting in more business class seats, more first class seats.

So do you think that if that continues there could be a drop in prices for the upper tiers of air travel?

I don't think so.

I think, you know, that's really what we're seeing is airlines, all they care about is, you know, they, they have these economy fares but they're not really making money on them.

You know, they're just what they're focusing on.

And the airlines that are the most profitable, Delta, right, Everyone's copying Delta.

You know, United, American, they're all copying Delta because Delta is so profitable because of their premium class that now Americans, they got their flags.

They're first coming in with these new A321 planes that are Smaller, so they can have more of them, but they have first class in them.

And then United is doing the same thing, and they're all focusing on premium travel.

And these fares are so expensive, you know, 10, $15,000 from New York or Salt Lake to.

To Paris on Delta.

Yeah, it's very expensive.

So that's where they're making the money.

And like you said, you know, if they're.

They're focusing there and those prices probably won't change.

It will just be the.

The economy ones.

I think, just based on what we're seeing in the airlines, they're focused on profitability, so they're just going to keep investing in that premium experience.

Yeah.

Very interesting.

Well, it was a wonderful article, and you have a terrific service.

Thank you so, so much for appearing on the Farmer Travel Show.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Always fun to be here.

And that's it for this week's show.

I thank you so much for listening.

And to those who are traveling, may I wish you a hearty bon voyage.

Sour candy on the table?

Lazy afternoons in your sweatpants Watching cable?

Well, it feels so far away?

All the channels seem the same?

Trying to remember all the songs we like to play?

Cause those lazy afternoons?

Don't come so frequently these days.

Long?

And I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake?

Oh, but I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes?

I can't get you off of my mind?

Looking out the window where we spend so much of our time?

Cause I miss the way it felt?

But I guess you can't control those damn cards with.

I know that both of us are happy when we're free?

But would it be so hard to find your freedom here with me?

Oh, it's been so long And I cannot help but wonder Are you ever coming home?

I like you with your sour candy in the boat house on the lake?

But I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate the way it takes.