The new travel wisdom has it that the lowest airfares can be found six weeks before your departure d

The new travel wisdom has it that the lowest airfares can be found six weeks before your departure date. But if you haven't already booked your flight for the Christmas holidays, you may have missed the best deals.
"The average flight out of Toronto for Christmas is $751," he said; that's for return fares for short- and long-haul flights, taxes and fees included, between Dec. 21 and 26. "Prices are only going to go up and flights are likely to sell out."
There are still ways to minimize your travel costs this holiday season, though delaying making plans isn't one of them. Goldstein says the most expensive fares are for flights between Dec. 21 and 26, and fares out of Toronto are in line with those trends.
When I was looking for flights from Stuttgart, Germany to my hometown of Vancouver, the cheapest one I could find was $2,100. So I took Goldstein's advice and looked at combinations of airline, train and bus transportation in order to reduce my costs.
I found that if I was willing to fly into Seattle and take a three-hour bus ride to Vancouver, car rental coupons and discounts the price of my flight home dropped to $950: a savings of $1,150 over a direct flight. I eventually settled on a flight car rental coupons and discounts from Paris to Vancouver for just $640. It would require a three-hour car rental coupons and discounts train trip to Paris for $50, but the savings of over $1,400 more than made up for the extra travel time.
Rick Seaney, co-founder of FareCompare.com, writes in his blog that the less expensive travel period before Christmas ends on Dec. 18. "Beginning on Dec. 19, prices start rising by about 30 per cent, and more for the next two weeks or so."
When searching one-way flights from Toronto to Vancouver, I found the cheapest flight for Dec. 21 or 22 was $615 (after taxes and fees). However, a flight on Dec. 20 cost $525, and if you can take off a few days earlier, you can still find flights car rental coupons and discounts for under $450. That's hardly a bargain, but still a significant savings.