There’s an art to it.
If the only thing getting you through these last few weeks of the year is a dreamy vacation, hopefully in your near future, and you’re looking to book with travel points, according to experts, there’s a certain science to it.
While most would assume the “Goldilocks” travel playbook of booking a flight not too early or not too late would be the jackpot to scoring a good deal, according to Going.com, a service that finds and alerts travelers of cheap flight deals, that same logic unfortunately doesn’t apply to award travel.
If you’re purchasing a flight using a credit card, the sweet spot for domestic flights is booking 1-3 months before a desired departure date and 2-8 months for international flights, according to a Going.com report that looked at search data from January 1, 2025, to November 20, 2025.
But for travelers booking with points or miles, the best time to secure a ticket is when airlines release their schedules, about 10-11 months from the departure date and then in the weeks right before takeoff — think of this window as bookends.
Since those months in between are when flights are usually the cheapest, it doesn’t make any sense to waste award points when you could just snag a reasonably priced ticket using your credit card.
Speaking of smart ways to book travel for 2026, over 77% of Americans said they would use AI to help them plan their next trip but experts a bit more skeptical.
“I would be wary of handing over all the travel planning to AI,” Sarah Silbert, managing editor at Points Path, warned The Post, saying it’s a “great first step.”
Both Silbert and RVshare travel expert Fiorella Yriberry advised travelers to use AI with caution by telling tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini their travel style, preferences and what they’re looking to get out of their trip.
“It’s best at providing suggestions and coming up with a shortlist of options, but you shouldn’t trust it to make the final call on anything, especially when it comes to timing flights and transportation, since making mistakes could be costly,” Silbert shared with The Post.
