Domestic round-trip airfare averaged $366 the week of August 17, up 34% year-over-year, according to Kayak pricing data, and fall lodging in the top ten U.S. destinations now runs 20% higher than summer rates rather than lower, based on Expedia’s Fall Travel Outlook. That’s the opposite of what shoulder season is supposed to deliver, and it means the old advice to simply travel in September or October and expect a discount no longer holds up nearly as reliably as it used to.
The Discount That Used to Be Guaranteed Is Disappearing
As recently as 2023, travelers could count on meaningful seasonal discounts almost anywhere they looked. Domestic round-trip flights averaged 20% cheaper in fall than in summer that year, and international destinations showed even bigger gaps, with Europe averaging 33% cheaper fall pricing and Asia around 29% cheaper, based on year-over-year comparisons reported by CNBC citing Hopper and Expedia data. By 2026, those same categories have compressed sharply. Europe’s fall discount has fallen to roughly 22%, Asia’s to about 21%, and Oceania’s shoulder-season savings have shrunk from 18% down to just 7%. Domestic flight pricing has essentially flipped, with fall fares now matching or slightly exceeding summer prices in many major U.S. markets rather than undercutting them.
Hayley Berg, lead economist at Hopper Technology Solutions, has pointed to several forces behind the shift in reporting on the trend: remote work has smoothed out the sharp seasonal demand spikes that used to define summer travel, better price-transparency tools have let more travelers spot and book shoulder-season deals before they disappear, and overcrowding at peak summer destinations is actively pushing more travelers to shift their trips into what used to be the quieter months, which in turn pushes prices up during that window too.
The Savings Haven’t Vanished, They’ve Moved
Despite the tighter margins overall, Expedia’s own outlook data shows real savings still exist for travelers willing to be selective about where they go. Aspen, Colorado stood out with 45% combined savings on lodging and flights when comparing fall to summer pricing, and Anchorage, Alaska showed a 40% combined discount. On the beach side, Fort Walton Beach, Florida offered 30% combined savings, notably higher than beach destinations like Honolulu, which showed only about 10%. Across the six destinations Expedia highlighted, mountain destinations averaged roughly 30% combined savings compared to about 15% for beach destinations, suggesting the type of trip you’re booking matters as much as the season you book it in.
That unevenness is really the headline. Shoulder season used to function as a blanket discount that applied almost everywhere you looked. Now it behaves more like a narrow window that opens in specific destinations and specific weeks, and closes again once other travelers catch on and book those same dates.
Why the Timing Window Keeps Getting Tighter
Aran Ryan, director of industry studies at Tourism Economics, has tied part of the shift to genuine climate pattern changes, with summer heat extending later into what used to be considered shoulder season in a lot of popular destinations, which keeps demand and pricing elevated further into September and even October. Combine that with the collapse of ultra-low-cost domestic carriers, including Spirit Airlines ending operations earlier this year, and there’s simply less budget-fare inventory available to pull down average pricing during what used to be the slow months. Fewer discount seats and a longer effective summer season are working together to shrink the calendar window where genuine savings still show up.
How to Actually Catch the Window That’s Left
The practical shift for travelers is treating shoulder season as a research project rather than an assumption. Instead of picking any date after Labor Day and expecting a deal, compare specific destinations against each other the way Expedia’s own data does, since a mountain town in late September might still offer a real discount while a beach destination the same week barely moves off summer pricing. Booking earlier than you might have in past years also matters more now, since the narrower savings windows that remain tend to get discovered and booked up faster than the broader shoulder seasons of a few years ago ever did. The savings are still out there. They’re just no longer sitting around waiting for you to notice them.
