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CheapAir.com CEO Shares Money Saving Tips For Holiday Travel

STUDIO CITY (CBSLA.com) — Heading home for the holidays? CheapAir.com will get you there with money to spare.

Jeff Klee, CEO of CheapAir.com, visited KCAL9 Tuesday to share some tips for saving money when traveling over the holidays.

Headquartered in Calabasas, CheapAir.com is powered by a team of 50 travel enthusiasts who use cutting edge technology and superior customer service to radically simplify the way people shop for travel deals.

Holiday travel tips from CheapAir:

• Although our analysis has found that the best time to book a flight is generally seven weeks in advance, for the holiday it's best to book even earlier.

• We have been tracking holiday air fare trends since May. (see: http://www.cheapair.com/blog/holiday-flights/) Since October 5th, fares have been steadily climbing. If you have not already booked for the holidays, it's important to not wait much longer.

• Being flexible on travel dates is best way to save money. For example, a Wednesday to Sunday Thanksgiving trip will be very expensive. But you can save an average of $113 per ticket just by pushing your trip back a day and going Tuesday to Saturday. If you want to save even more, you can make your trip Monday to Tuesday (of the following week) and save an average of $294 per ticket!

• It's important to be realistic when you're shopping for the holiday airfares. Right now, fares for Thanksgiving on average are 74 percent higher than the rest of the year; fares for Christmas are 34 percent higher.

• For Christmas travel, you pay a much higher premium for warm weather destinations. Hawaii, Mexico, and Florida is running about 75 percent higher than at other times of the year, whereas big cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco are in the 15-30 percent range.

• There is a myth that if you wait until the last minute the airlines will have unsold seats that they'll practically give away for nothing. That is simply not going to happen. Flights are full and airlines have gotten way too smart to end up in that position.

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