How to Find Cheap Thanksgiving Flights on Black Friday

The honest answer is that Black Friday 2026 cannot make your outbound Thanksgiving flight cheaper, because the sale lands on Friday, November 27 — the day *after* Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26. A Black Friday fare this year can only reach your return leg, a December or January trip, or Thanksgiving 2027. That calendar quirk changes what a smart shopper should do this weekend.

The useful moves are narrow: watch the return leg, use the federal 24-hour hold-or-refund rule to lock a fare risk-free, and read the blackout dates before you believe a percentage off.

Verification note: Program terms and availability can change. This page was checked against linked sources on November 13, 2026.

Why the 2026 calendar breaks the usual advice

Thanksgiving falls as late as it can this year. A November 10, 2026 travel-industry announcement carried by PR Newswire confirms the holiday-weekend dates: Thanksgiving on November 26, Black Friday on November 27, and the follow-up Travel Tuesday promotion on December 1. In most years, Black Friday arrives while the holiday is still weeks away, and a sale fare can genuinely cover the trip.

In 2026, anyone shopping on Black Friday for Thanksgiving travel is shopping while the holiday is already underway. If you have not left yet, you are buying a last-minute ticket, not a sale ticket. So treat Black Friday 2026 as a sale for your *next* trip.

The exception is the return leg — a flight home on November 29 or 30 is still unpurchased for plenty of travelers, and it is the one piece of Thanksgiving travel a Friday sale can still touch.

What the fare math looks like this year

Prices are working against you. Expedia's 2026 Holiday Travel Outlook reports average airline ticket prices up 15% year over year for domestic trips and 20% for international ones. The same PR Newswire announcement cited above puts domestic airfare up 40% year over year, and gives that increase as the reason the 2026 Travel Tuesday promotion leads with hotel discounts rather than flight discounts.

The cheap-booking windows have also closed. Expedia's guidance was to book domestic Thanksgiving flights by November 5 to save up to $125 and international by October 15 to save up to $230. Both deadlines passed before Black Friday arrived, which is the plain reason a 2026 Black Friday purchase starts from a higher base price than a shopper in October paid.

Day of travel still matters more than almost anything else. Expedia names November 23–26 as the Thanksgiving window with the lowest average fares, identifies Monday, November 23 as the cheapest departure day of the week, and flags Sunday, November 29 as the most expensive day to fly.

Where the 2026 discounts actually land

Read the fine print on what a travel sale covers. The Travel Tuesday promotion announced for December 1 leads with up to 50% off hotels, and its confirmed airline partners are Avianca, Condor, GOL, Royal Jordanian, Singapore Airlines and SAS — all international carriers, with no US domestic airline among them. That shapes a realistic plan.

If your trip is domestic, the hotel side of a holiday-weekend sale is where the discount lives this year, not the airfare side. If you are planning an international trip for later in the winter, those carrier partnerships are worth checking against their own websites. A percentage-off headline is also not a price.

Compare the sale fare against what the same route costs on an ordinary Tuesday before you decide anything has been saved.

Blackout dates are the catch

Airline Black Friday fares routinely exclude the exact dates people want. Alaska Airlines' 2025 30%-off sale excluded travel on January 15–20 and February 12–17, 2026 — the Martin Luther King Jr. and Presidents' Day holiday weekends.

Past Southwest and Spirit sales barred Sunday departures, and Spirit's also barred Friday ones. Before you click, check these against the sale terms: A sale that excludes every date you can actually travel is not a discount. It is the same ticket at the same price with extra steps.

• The blackout date list, and whether your exact travel dates sit inside it
• Day-of-week restrictions, since Sunday returns are the most commonly excluded
• The booking deadline, which is often shorter than the sale's travel window
• Whether the fare class allows changes, or charges for a seat and a bag on top

Use the 24-hour rule to lock a fare without committing

Federal rules give you a free look. Under 14 CFR 259.5(b)(4), as explained by the US Department of Transportation's aviation consumer protection guidance, airlines selling tickets at least seven days before departure must either hold the reservation at the quoted fare for 24 hours without payment, or refund the ticket in full within 24 hours of purchase. This is the single most useful tool during a sale weekend.

Book the fare you find, then spend the next day comparing it against other routes, dates and airports without the price moving underneath you. If something better turns up, cancel inside the window for a full refund. The limit matters: the rule applies to tickets bought directly from the airline.

It does not cover tickets purchased through online travel agencies, where the cancellation terms are whatever that seller's policy says. If you want the 24-hour protection, buy from the carrier.

A realistic plan for this weekend

Work in this order: One last piece of scale: AAA's most recent published Thanksgiving forecast, from November 2025, projected 6 million domestic air travelers over the holiday — roughly 7% of holiday travelers — with domestic round-trips averaging about $700. AAA had not released a 2026 forecast as of November 13, so that $700 figure is a year-old benchmark, and this year's fare increases sit on top of it.

• Price the return leg first, since that is the only Thanksgiving flight a November 27 sale can still reach
• Check nearby dates — Expedia's data puts November 29 at the top of the price range, so a Monday or Tuesday return is worth pricing
• Book directly with the airline, then use the 24-hour window to shop against it
• Treat any sale as a chance to buy December, January or Thanksgiving 2027 travel at a discount, since those dates are far enough out to qualify
• Read blackouts before fare class, and fare class before you compare the headline percentage

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Black Friday sale discount my flight to Thanksgiving dinner?

Not in 2026. Black Friday is November 27 and Thanksgiving is November 26, so the outbound trip has already happened by the time the sale opens.

What is the cheapest day to fly during Thanksgiving week 2026?

Expedia identifies Monday, November 23 as the cheapest departure day of the week and Sunday, November 29 as the most expensive day to fly.

Does the 24-hour refund rule apply to every ticket?

No. It covers tickets bought at least seven days before departure, and it does not cover tickets purchased through online travel agencies rather than the airline itself.