Personal Finance
How to save money on flights as airlines raise prices
Travelers in Terminal 1 at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York, US, on Sunday, March 1, 2026.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For budget conscious travelers, it’s gotten harder to escape the rising cost of airfare in recent weeks.
Airlines are raising bag fees, adding fuel surcharges and cutting flight schedules to manage the fallout from the Iran war.
Average economy fares rose to $998 for round-trip international flights as of March 30, up from $774 on Feb. 23, before the war started, according to data from Kayak, a travel search engine. Domestic fares increased to $350 from $336.
Airlines have raised prices for consumers largely to offset the higher cost of jet fuel, one of the largest costs for airlines, according to travel experts.
Before a two-week ceasefire announced late Tuesday, Iran had effectively choked off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway used to ship about a fifth of the world’s oil supply.
Jet fuel prices have nearly doubled since the Iran war began, to $4.81 per gallon on Tuesday from $2.50 on Feb. 27, according to an Argus Media jet fuel price index.
If jet fuel prices stay elevated for a full year — at a level roughly $2 per gallon higher than before the war — airfares would have to increase about $50 for each one-way fare, or about 17%, Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a report on Tuesday.
“The most notable response to the surge in jet fuel prices has been fare increases (and fuel surcharges in international markets),” they wrote.
U.S. carriers such as Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines recently raised fees to check bags.
Some airlines have also said they will cut flights that have become temporarily unprofitable due to higher fuel prices. United CEO Scott Kirby said the airline would trim off-peak flight schedules, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, during the second and third quarters this year.
While there will still be flights available on those days, a reduced schedule means there will likely be more demand for those fewer seats — and higher prices, experts said.
“That will have a big impact on the price-sensitive traveler,” since flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and other off-peak times is generally a dependable way to score cheaper tickets, said Katy Nastro, a travel expert at Going, a travel deal website.
Oil prices retreated on Wednesday after the ceasefire announcement, though analysts said it’s unlikely airfares and ancillary fees would normalize quickly, even if the ceasefire holds. Higher fees may be particularly sticky, especially if travel demand doesn’t fall, they said.
If that’s the case, don’t fret: There may still be ways for budget-conscious travelers to find a decent deal on flights, experts said.
“The playbook hasn’t gone fully out the window,” Nastro said. “Travelers still have some options.”
Lock in a good price
Travelers wait in line to go through security in Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 27, 2026 in New York, New York.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
For domestic flights, the lowest prices tend to be 23 to 51 days before departure, according to Google Flights. Those for international flights are generally 49 days or more before departure, it said.
Airfares tend to rise steadily beyond those tipping points, as a flight nears.
However, airfare is often volatile — and that’s especially the case these days, Nastro said. Given this dynamic, it’s less likely that travelers will score last-minute deals, she said.
Travelers who see a price that fits their budgets would be wise to jump on it, Nastro said.
“The only predictable thing you can do is lock in that affordable flight today,” she said.
Consider single instead of round-trip tickets
“Many people think it’s cheaper to purchase airline tickets together as a round trip, but sometimes finding the cheapest flights comes from purchasing two single one-way tickets,” Lourdes Losada, director of the Americas at Skyscanner, a travel search engine, said in an e-mail.
For example, a round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas might cost $50. But a one-way flight to Las Vegas and a one-way return flight to Los Angeles might each cost $20 — a savings of 20%, Losada said.
Flexibility can be a ‘superpower’
A man looks at a departure board displaying multiple canceled and delayed flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on March 16, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Flexibility is often a traveler’s best friend, experts said.
That flexibility generally means being strategic about when and where you fly, and it can take many forms, they said:
- Travel days and dates: Despite pared back flight schedules for some airlines, travelers will still likely see affordable prices for flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Nastro said. Sundays tend to be among the most expensive, she said. Likewise, try to avoid peak times of the year to travel and look for opportunities to travel during shoulder or off-peak seasons. For those hoping to take a summer trip, generally avoid traveling in July and perhaps opt instead for early to mid-June or the very end of August, which tend to be less busy, Nastro said.
- Alternate destinations: Flexibility with travel destination is “key” to finding the best flight deals, Losada said. “It lets you capitalize on discounts and explore locations you may not have otherwise considered,” she said. For example, instead of Paris, travelers can try Lyon or Marseille for affordable French culture; or Eindhoven or Rotterdam in the Netherlands instead of Amsterdam; or Fukuoka or Sapporo in Japan instead of Tokyo, Losada said.
- Airline: Being flexible with an airline, instead of swearing allegiance to one, can help travelers find better airfares, Nastro said. “For a budget traveler, if you’re not tied to an airline, that will be your superpower,” she said.
Take advantage of search engines that allow you to compare prices on different days and to various destinations, experts said.
Consider a layover
Jackyenjoyphotography | Moment | Getty Images
Adding a layover instead of flying nonstop to a destination is a reliable way to save money, experts said. Doing so saves fliers about 22%, on average, according to Google Flights data.
Of course, travelers need to weigh the risks and opportunity costs of doing so.
This year has already seen significant travel disruption — and thousands of delayed and canceled flights — due to events including the Iran war, cartel violence in Mexico and the U.S. military operation in Venezuela.
If travelers have a layover, disruptions can throw an entire itinerary out of whack, experts said.
One type of economy fare may be better
Booking “main economy” — instead of the typically cheaper “basic economy” — can, perhaps counterintuitively, save you money in the long run, Nastro said.
It’s somewhat of a gamble, though.
If prices fall after a traveler buys their ticket, travelers with a main economy fare can take advantage of the ability to make changes to their ticket, Nastro said. In this case, travelers can get their ticket repriced at the lower fare, usually by the airline providing a credit for the difference, with the traveler able to use it within a year of issue, she said.
For example, if a $250 flight later drops by $50, the traveler can call and get it repriced to $200 — and can use that $50 for future flights, she said.
“So, you’re getting ‘cash’ back even if it’s only redeemable through the airline,” she wrote in an e-mail. “There is no limit how many times you can do this (aka you can still take advantage if that price drops again, but airlines don’t publicize this.”
You may find deals elsewhere
While many airlines are “hamstrung by fuel prices” and feel the need to raise prices, other key aspects of a travel itinerary like tours and hotels may offer deals to juice consumer demand, said Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet.
“We’re seeing more and more crazy deals that are targeted at U.S. travelers for U.S. travel,” French said. “I’m seeing the best deals this summer since Covid,” she said.
For example, in Las Vegas — which French said is notorious for “nickel and diming” travelers — she pointed to a recent offer by MGM Resorts International, which is charging $330 plus tax for a two-night all-inclusive stay on the Las Vegas Strip at either the Luxor Hotel & Casino or Excalibur Hotel & Casino. French said that deal might normally cost more than $900.
“I think that’s Vegas saying, ‘Yes, we need to get people in,'” French said.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday.
In what could be Jerome Powell’s last as chair before President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed nominee Kevin Warsh takes the helm, central bankers maintained the federal funds rate in a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
Inflation has surged since the war with Iran began, leaving policymakers with limited room to act, according to Sean Snaith, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. “We’re in a kind of suspended animation — between Iran and the Fed transition,” Snaith said.
Before the oil shock, inflation was holding above the Fed’s 2% target but not worsening. Now the jump in energy costs could have longer-term inflationary effects, economists say.
For Americans struggling in the face of higher gas prices and overall affordability challenges, the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged does little to ease budgetary pressures. “The cavalry isn’t coming anytime soon,” Snaith said.
How the Fed decision impacts you
The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a trickle-down effect on many consumer borrowing and savings rates.
Short-term rates are more closely pegged to the prime rate, which is typically 3 percentage points above the federal funds rate. Longer-term rates, such as home loans, are more influenced by inflation and other economic factors.
Credit cards
Most credit cards have a short-term rate, so they track the Fed’s benchmark.
After the Fed cut rates three times in the second half of 2025, the average annual percentage rate has stayed just under 20%, according to Bankrate.
“Without Fed rate cuts, there’s not much reason to expect meaningful declines anytime soon, so carrying a balance will remain very expensive,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
Mortgage rates
Fixed mortgage rates, on the other hand, don’t directly track the Fed but typically follow the lead of long-term Treasury rates.
Concerns about how the Iran war will impact the U.S. economy have already pushed the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage up to 6.38% as of Tuesday, from 5.99% at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily.
That leaves homeowners with existing low mortgage rates “feeling stuck,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. “Mortgages, more than any other credit type, work on a churn,” she said, referring to how a dip in rates can boost borrowing activity.
Student loans
Federal student loan rates are also fixed and based in part on the 10-year Treasury note, so most borrowers are somewhat shielded from Fed moves and recent economic uncertainty.
Current interest rates on undergraduate federal student loans made through June 30 are 6.39%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Interest rates for the upcoming school year will be based in part on the May auction of the 10-year note.
Car loans
Auto loan rates are tied to several factors, including the Fed’s benchmark. Because financing costs remain elevated, new car buyers are taking on longer loans to keep their monthly payments manageable, according to the latest data from Edmunds.
Even so, with the rate on a five-year new car loan near 7%, the average monthly payment on a new car rose to $773 in the first quarter of 2026, an all-time high.
“Car buyers are in a tough spot right now because they’re getting squeezed from both ends: high sticker prices and high interest rates, with neither showing any signs of letting up,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
“Until the rate picture shifts, buyers will keep stretching loan terms to make payments work, which only adds to the total cost of ownership down the road,” Yoon said.
Savings rates
While the Fed has no direct influence on deposit rates, the yields tend to be correlated with changes in the target federal funds rate. So, although rates on certificates of deposit and high-yield savings accounts have fallen from recent highs, they are holding above the annual rate of inflation.
For now, top-yielding online savings accounts and one-year CD rates pay around 4%, according to Bankrate.
“Yields on high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit are down from their peaks of a few years ago, but they’re still strong compared to what we’ve seen for most of the past decade,” Schulz said.
Milan Markovic | E+ | Getty Images
The average tax refund is 11.2% higher this season, compared with about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data.
As of April 10, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,397, up from $3,055 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday.
The IRS data reflects about 114 million individual returns received, out of about 164 million expected through Tax Day. Next week’s filing update is expected to include data through the April 15 deadline.
President Donald Trump‘s 2025 legislation, rebranded to the “working families tax cuts,” was a key talking point for Republicans on Tax Day.
With the November midterm elections approaching and Republicans defending slim majorities in Congress, many GOP lawmakers have highlighted Trump’s tax breaks and higher average refunds.
Meanwhile, affordability has been top of mind for many Americans amid rising costs of gas, electricity, food and other living expenses.
For filers who expected a refund this season, nearly one-quarter, or 23%, planned to use the funds to pay down credit card debt, and the same share said they would save the payment, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April. It polled 3,494 U.S. adults at the end of March.
Who benefited from Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
“It’s been a great tax season for the American people,” many of whom have benefited from Trump’s tax breaks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a White House press briefing on Wednesday.
More than 53 million filers claimed at least one of Trump’s “signature new tax cuts” — the deductions for tip income, overtime earnings, seniors and auto loan interest — the Department of the Treasury also announced on Wednesday.
Those filers, who claimed the deductions on Schedule 1-A, have seen an average tax cut of over $800, according to the Treasury. Tax cuts can trigger a higher refund or reduce taxes owed, depending on the filer’s situation.
Some filers who itemize tax breaks have also seen benefits from the bigger federal deduction limit for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Trump’s legislation raised that cap to $40,000, up from $10,000, for 2025.
The latest SALT deduction limit change is expected to primarily benefit higher earners, according to a May 2025 analysis of various proposals from the Tax Foundation.
The Treasury has not released data on how many filers have claimed the SALT deduction during the 2026 filing season.
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on April 16, 2026.
NYSE
U.S. stocks climbed to record highs on Thursday against a backdrop of war, an oil supply shock and economic forecasts warning of stunted growth amid a protracted conflict.
Many investors may be thinking: Why?
Largely, it’s because the stock market is a barometer of what investors think will happen in the future, rather than an assessment of the present day, according to economists and market analysts.
Investors are essentially shrugging off the Middle East conflict as a blip that will be resolved relatively quickly, they said.
“The stock market isn’t trying to price what’s happening today,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “The stock market is always trying to price what the world is going to look like six to 12 months from now.”
Why stocks have been ‘resilient’
The S&P 500, a U.S. stock index, fell about 8% in the initial weeks of the Iran war, from the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 to a recent low on March 30.
But stocks have rebounded since then, erasing all losses since the beginning of the war. The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on Thursday — about 11% higher than its nadir at the end of March. That followed a record close on Wednesday.
“The market has remained very resilient in the face of the war and has rallied strongly on the prospect that it will be resolved,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.
A ship waits to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following the two-week temporary ceasefire between the US and Iran, which is conditional on the opening of the strait, in Oman on April 8, 2026.
Shady Alassar | Anadolu | Getty Images
And while investors cheered the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the conflict, the temporary ceasefire has appeared tenuous, with the U.S. and Iran each accusing the other of breaking the agreement.
Nations haven’t been able to reach a peace deal ahead of the ceasefire’s end. Vice President JD Vance said U.S. officials left peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend after the Iranian delegation refused to agree to American demands not to develop a nuclear weapon.
The markets ‘have memory’
Ultimately, the stock market is signaling a collective belief that tensions will ratchet down, the war will end in the near term and oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz will normalize, economists said.
That’s largely because investors have been conditioned to believe that President Donald Trump will back off if the economic pain becomes too intense, economists said — the so-called “TACO” trade, shorthand for “Trump always chickens out.”
“Investors strongly believe — and have been conditioned to believe — he’s going to stand down, find a way to pivot, declare victory and move on,” Zandi said.
Trump has pushed back on the notion of backing down, framing his brinkmanship as a savvy negotiating tactic.
Economists pointed to a recent example of this dynamic: in April 2025 during so-called liberation day, when the Trump administration levied a host of tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Within days — after the stock market had cratered more than 12% — Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs. Stocks then saw one of their biggest daily rallies in history following Trump’s reversal.
Investors remember that Trump often de-escalates geopolitical shocks — which is why they’ve seized on positive headlines that hint at progress in peace talks, for example, Seydl said.
“The markets have memory,” Seydl said.
AI stocks and the ‘tech boom’
Traders celebrating at the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2026, as the S&P 500 closed above the 7,000 level for the first time.
NYSE
There are other factors underpinning market resilience during wartime, economists said.
One is the investors’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and technology stocks, which account for almost half of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, Zandi said.
“Those stocks run on their own dynamic independent of anything, including the war in Iran,” Zandi said. “I think we would have been down a lot more and it would have been harder for us to recover had it not been for the very, very optimistic perspectives on AI.”
We’re in the middle of a “tech boom” — and investors are likely to remain optimistic until they think the tech cycle has run its course, Seydl said.
More broadly, stock investors are essentially making a bet on the future earnings growth of a company — and the earnings backdrop has been “pretty solid,” Seydl said.
Consumer spending appears to be stable, for example, economists said. And companies are getting a boost to their after-tax earnings from the GOP’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” which, among other things, made it easier to write off investments upfront and therefore reduce their tax liability, Zandi said.
Going forward
Experts said there will be an economic hit from the Iran war, though.
“Despite the recent news of a temporary ceasefire, some damage is already done, and the downside risks remain elevated,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, wrote Tuesday.
A protracted conflict risks deep and global economic pain, he wrote.
Even if the conflict is short-lived — as the broad market expects — stocks are unlikely to march much higher until it’s clear the U.S. is on the other side of the war and its economic fallout, Zandi said.
If investors are incorrect, and President Trump doesn’t back down or quickly extricate the U.S. from the war, the stock market may see a “full-blown correction” or worse, Zandi said. A stock market correction is a decline of at least 10% from recent highs.
“Everyone thinks they know what the script is,” Zandi said. “Now they just need to follow the script. If they don’t, the market will have some real problems.”
The uncertainty provides yet another example of why the average investor with a long time horizon should stick to their investment plan and ignore the noise, experts said.
“Trying to time the market is very difficult if not impossible for the average investor,” Seydl said. “It’s better to take a long-term perspective and ride out bouts of volatility.”
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