A handful of the major airlines are using “Cyber Monday” to offer deeply discounted airfare prices to travelers. United Airlines, JetBlue, and Virgin America have all just announced special one-day prices, with all of them practically giving flights away to select destinations starting at $39 each way.
JetBlue has limited its discount travel window to Dec. 1-17 in an effort to fill all the empty seats that fly between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Daily Travel & Deal blog from the LA Times provides a more detailed analysis of this particular offer.
United’s sale is for travel in the contiguous U.S. and Canada from Jan. 5-Feb. 11. Travel to and from Hawaii is Jan. 11-Feb. 11. A 3-night, Friday night or Saturday night minimum stay is required for travel within the contiguous 48 United States and to Hawaii. No minimum night stay is required for travel to Canada.
Virgin America’s sale is the broadest, with the promotion lasting until Dec. 8 and travel permitted Dec. 3- May 23. However, certain peak travel days around the winter holidays are blacked out.
Hopefully we’ll see competing airlines match prices on overlapping routes.
Here’s some more travel news you can use:
- Continental Airlines said today that credit and debit cards will be accepted for purchases onboard most its aircraft starting Tuesday. Flight attendants will use hand-held devices to process the card payments for purchases of alcoholic beverages and headsets. The airline said that the new cashless system will be available on all Continental mainline flights, except for service to and from China.
- Yapta’s hotel booking partner Orbitz.com, recently announced it has enhanced its Low Price Guarantee, giving customers ironclad confidence they’re getting the lowest possible hotel prices. Under the new program, customers who find their prepaid hotel room available for a lower price on any site, including Orbitz, can receive a refund for the difference and a $50 discount on a future hotel or vacation package booking. Plus, Orbitz now allows customers to submit a claim right up to the time of the property’s cancellation deadline.
- In celebration of its new blog, CheapOair is launching a “@CheapOair 12 Days of Travel” contest where travel-minded Tweeps can win daily holiday gifts including travel and retail gift certificates, and a grand prize on day 12 for free round trip airline tickets within the domestic U.S. The 12 day contest starts today and ends on Fri., Dec. 11th. For this contest, followers of the CheapOair Twitter account will be asked to “re-tweet” that day’s message or go to the CheapOair travel blog to find that day’s message to “re-tweet”. For more information, visit http://contests.cheapoair.com/.
