If ‘fall is really the new summer,’ are there any autumn travel deals left?

Heather Wright has long been a fan of off-season travel, when the weather cools, crowds thin and prices drop significantly. At least, that used to be the pattern heading into fall. Wright, a tax accountant from Seattle, has been looking to take a trip with friends to Europe in November, possibly to Malta or Madeira. She plans to fly into whichever major European airport she can comfortably reach from the US for a good deal and take shorter flights onward from there. But she’s not finding the savings she expected. “This fall is kind of weird. It just feels like the prices are a lot higher later into the season than they have been in the past,” said Wright, who has focused mostly on tracking airfare. She’s not wrong. Surging jet fuel prices caused by the war with Iran sent fares way up this year. And the broader travel savings long associated with the shift from summer to fall have been shrinking for several years as demand for autumn travel grows. Finding fall value is still possible, some experts say. But travelers will need to be more flexible and strategic. It’s clear that the “secret season” is no longer a secret, especially among luxury travelers. “Our perspective is that fall is really the new summer,” said Misty Belles, vice president of global public relations for Virtuoso, a network that specializes in luxury and experiential travel. Fading fall savings Virtuoso is seeing a 59% increase in fall 2026 bookings over last year, with the amount of money generated off fall bookings up 69%. Virtuoso’s bookings to Europe this fall have climbed 49%, even as rates rose more than 7%, “showing that travelers are choosing the season for what it offers rather than what it saves,” Belles noted in a recent presentation. (Virtuoso’s figures are based almost entirely on high-end hotel insights). Higher prices aren’t limited to international luxury travel. In the US, autumn savings on domestic airfare have pretty much dried up. “It seems like this year, there is not going to be a shoulder season for domestic travelers,” said Hayley Berg, lead travel economist for travel technology platform Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS). HTS shows average domestic fall airfare is up 39% compared to last year ­— putting ticket prices in line with peak summer months for the first time in years. Four years ago, the cost of US domestic airfare in the fall was about 20% less than peak summer. This year, it’s 1% higher, according to HTS. The company points to this year’s fuel shock, increased demand driven by flexible remote work arrangements and less competition from low-cost carriers as factors in the disappearance of discounts. Expedia has found that prices this fall in its top 10 US destinations, including New York, Miami and New Orleans, are higher than this summer, with lodging costs up an average of 20% and flight prices 2% higher. But the travel company also pointed to US beach and mountain destinations where significant fall savings are possible, including Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and Aspen, Colorado. US travelers aren’t the only ones facing high autumn prices. Expedia also found that fall hotel stays in destinations across the United Kingdom are, on average, slightly higher than summer, with some spots up as much as 20% to 30%. But some destinations in Portugal’s Algarve region and the Greek islands offer significant savings, the company pointed out. “Fall travel savings aren’t gone, but they’re not automatic,” said Melanie Fish, head of public relations for Expedia Group. Searching for fall value As dynamic pricing has spread more widely into the lodging sector, largely gone are the days when hoteliers automatically dropped prices as calendars flipped to September. For fall savings “it’s just as much about flexibility for where you go as scheduling that trip right after Labor Day,” Fish said. Travelers are searching on Expedia Group sites such as Expedia.com and Hotels.com using budget filters, Fish said, and “they’re using their rewards, they’re bundling perks and other ways to stretch the value of a trip” beyond just picking a date after the holiday weekend. Berg says looking at different airports within the same state or region can yield savings. Being flexible on your destination within the framework of a certain type of getaway — a beach vacation, for example — helps. And choosing dates that don’t make for the very popular Thursday-to-Sunday trip can be a cost-saver. “Sunday is typically the cheapest day of the week to stay,” Fish said. “So if you can plan your shoulder-season trip over a Sunday, then you have a double chance of getting some savings there.” Airfares will drop for most international regions going into fall, compared to summer 2026 fares — but by less than in recent years. In 2023, Europe fares dropped by 33% from summer to fall; this year HTS says that summer-to-fall drop will be 22%. “So the savings percentage versus summer is still there. It’s just that prices are so much higher across the board that you’re still going to be paying more this year,” Berg said. Airfares to Europe this fall are up 33% compared to last fall, according to HTS. ‘September has really replaced August’ It’s no surprise that the increasingly relentless heat of summer is a key driver of the shift toward fall travel. Crowds are another huge factor. And travelers have more flexibility. Even families tied to school calendars are increasingly taking advantage of short school breaks spread throughout the year, according to Jo-Anne Redwood, a travel adviser in southern California with Luna World Travel, which is a Virtuoso member. Redwood was reminded this summer of why she never suggests August to her clients. She spent a few sweltering weeks in Europe in July and August, in part to participate in what’s known as a “familiarization trip” to learn more about offerings from a luxury cruise line. Peak summer was the only time it was available. “It was miserable,” she said. On a tour she took in Budapest, one woman fainted. Redwood said the temperature was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 80% humidity. Redwood’s affluent clients are prioritizing the comfort that fall offers, both through lower temperatures and fewer crowds. “September has really replaced August and October is replacing September … I’m very, very busy right now with late September, October and even November cruising,” Redwood said. And prices are reflecting the high demand for fall trips. She was researching river cruises for late October and early November recently and she said prices are 15% to 20% higher — about $1,000 more — for those dates than they are for early September this year. And hotel rooms at smaller luxury properties with fewer rooms are becoming increasingly scarce. “I just tried to book the Rosewood in Tuscany for October, and the only room that’s left is $17,000 a night,” she said. While that highest-end price is eye-popping, increases are evident across the spectrum. “So on the higher end, yes, I am finding availability is a challenge in October. On the lower end, I think there’s still a lot of availability, but you’re just paying more for it,” Redwood said. The surge in interest among some travelers doesn’t necessarily mean that overall travel volume has been spiking this year. According to data tracked by analytics firm Cirium, a significant sample of airline booking data from online travel agencies and the global distribution system (GDS) for airlines suggests that bookings from the US to Europe for this July declined by about 6% from July 2025. And data for tickets booked over the summer for travel this fall suggests a similar nearly 6% autumn dip for travel from the US to Europe, compared to the same period last year. But Belles noted generally that bookings look higher in the luxury market, where traveler appetites closely mirror the performance of the stock market, which has been booming this year. She also pointed to the continued trend of prioritizing experiences over goods. And the experiences many Virtuoso travelers are seeking involve having more of a destination to themselves. That could be why interest in traveling in November is surging, too. Belles said it used to be a month that travelers mostly skipped over because of US Thanksgiving, “so now to see that we’re up like 70 and 71% for bookings and sales for November is really pretty staggering to me,” she said. A standoff for savings? Wright, the Seattle accountant, clearly has plenty of company as she eyes a late-fall break in Europe. Wright is hoping to fly premium economy or business class, but only if she can find a good deal. She’s planning to use credit card miles for at least part of her fare. Wright has noticed that one-way cash prices, which she has typically found to be closer to the price of a roundtrip fare, are now closer to half the roundtrip price. She’s thinking about mixing and matching one-way tickets, possibly in different cabin classes, paid for through a combination of cash and loyalty miles, to make her trip happen. But Wright is also noticing plenty of empty seats on the flights she’s been considering and is confounded by the high prices. “I’m just wondering if there’s a standoff between travelers and the airlines, where everyone is waiting to see who will blink first,” she said in an email to CNN Travel. “I suspect the airlines, knowing that fall travel is now much more popular than in the past, and that certain pockets of the population are still doing really well, are trying to sell as many expensive seats as early as they can, while waiting to see what happens with fuel costs,” Wright said. For now, she said she’s “in a holding pattern,” monitoring tickets to see what kind of fall value she can find. “I just don’t want to break the bank for a November trip. That just seems crazy to me.”