If you can think ahead to where you want to take a summer trip next year, you stand to save a ton of money on flights. But the longer you wait to book, the more it's likely going to cost you.
We know two things to be true about summer 2025 travel right now:
1. Domestic flight prices for June through September of 2025 are extraordinarily cheap right now, and that's unusual. Typically, domestic flight prices tend to bottom out between four and 12 weeks ahead of travel – not eight to 10 months beforehand.
2. Airline executives have been promising capacity cuts in summer 2025 – meaning they plan to fly fewer seats between destinations next summer after many airlines underperformed last summer, leading to cheap fares that hurt the airlines' bottom lines.
Knowing these two things can only lead to one conclusion: The airlines are going to cut capacity and increase fares for next summer, but they haven't yet, which makes right now a sweet spot for booking summer 2025 domestic flights.
Why is This Happening?
Remember last summer? Flight prices bottomed out big time as the airlines struggled to fill seats. The airlines prepared for another record-setting summer after 2022 and 2023 saw huge demand for cooped-up travelers ready to fly anywhere post-pandemic.
Instead, they found travelers were returning to their normal travel patterns. The airlines didn't sell enough tickets way in advance of summer 2024, so they couldn't sell those last-minute summer fares at much steeper prices in the spring and early summer like they planned to. So they halved (or better) thousands of fares across the country to help scrape a few dollars back and fill those empty seats. We declared it the best summer ever for cheap domestic flights.
It wasn't good for the airlines, even if it was amazing for us. And highly paid airline executives who like their jobs don't make mistakes like that two years in a row.
To appease frustrated shareholders, executives at American, Delta, JetBlue, United, and Southwest all vowed to cull capacity in their quarterly earnings calls after the tough summer.
And according to their 2025 schedules, the number of flights and seats have already decreased significantly for next year. Data from Cirium, an airline analytics company, shows big decreases on American, Alaska, Delta, JetBlue, and United. On average, there will be a 6.2% decrease in available seat miles (a common airline industry metric that measures passenger capacity) among those five airlines in June through August 2025 compared to the same period last summer. Delta will see the highest decrease at 9% and Alaska will see the smallest at 3.2%.
Think about it this way: Last year, the airlines had too much capacity and didn't sell enough tickets early on. Well, they're already working to solve the capacity problem with a 6% decrease…next comes their booking problem.
Right now, the airlines are offering cheap summer 2025 airfare so that they can start offering the more expensive fares sooner, too. Our advice: Be one of the travelers that gets the flights while they're cheap, not one of the travelers whining about how expensive summer airfare is when you're searching in May or June.
Thrifty Tip: If summer 2025 seems impossibly far away, book flexible main cabin tickets! Then, you can cancel for a voucher if your plans change, or you can rebook for the better price if I'm totally wrong about this trend and flight prices go down even further.
Read next: Book Now or Wait if Flight Prices Drop? The Definitive Answer
Where Should We Go?
I'm so glad you asked.
We discovered this trend of cheap summer 2025 airfare while searching for great deals for our Thrifty Traveler Premium members. We search for fares from more than 200 U.S. airports every day, and found that this trend extends from coast to coast. In the past three weeks, we've sent a dozen or more flight deals with summer 2025 availability in them, most of which were in the U.S.
Portland, Oregon … or Maine
We can start out west, where cheap flights to Portland, Oregon (PDX) this winter caught our eye and led us to round up some of the best fares.
But as we dug into the deal further, we saw that many of these fares held on not only through winter and spring, but through summer 2025, too. I'll use a little hometown bias on this search with a look at what it would take to fly myself from Minneapolis (MSP) to PDX next summer.
As you can see, the getting was good on this deal! The very lowest fare of $179 roundtrip was available all throughout July and August, including some weekend-length trips!
So as not to play favorites in the Battle of the Portlands, we sent a little love to travelers who prefer Portland, Maine (PWM), too! The East Coast Portland is a perfect summer adventure for travelers who love the national parks or a little lobster on the North Atlantic coast.
Read our complete guide to visiting the U.S. national parks!
These prices carried over to the summer months, too! You don't have to settle for an off-season trip to fly to PWM, as evidenced by this calendar view for travelers based in Washington, D.C. (DCA).
Orlando, Florida
Summertime trips are especially important for travelers with kids. When you're tied to the academic calendar, summer might be your only shot at a true family getaway. And where better to take the kids than the most magical place on earth: Orlando, Florida (MCO).
This deal included dozens of U.S. cities with quick, cheap fares under $248 roundtrip down to Disney. Because Disney is so popular in the winter months, some of the best fares could actually be found next summer. If you're willing to brave the Florida heat, there were some big summer savings for travelers all over the U.S. New Yorkers would especially like these fares.
The Big Apple
If you can extend your summer into September, the prices get even better for our friends in NYC.
Maybe the best feature of domestic flight prices is that they almost always work in reverse. And our subscribers know full well that New York City (JFK, LGA, EWR) can be a great cheap flights destination, too.
For Texans looking to beat the Austin (AUS) heat, nonstop flights to NYC are looking pretty good for next summer.
Nantucket, Anyone?
Orlando and New York City are reliably cheap places to fly, even if summer fares are a little more rare. But some U.S. destinations aren't known for cheap flights, and we're seeing some sizzling summer fares there, too. Take Nantucket (ACK), for example.
Its bougie reputation precedes it, but Nantucket isn't just an island for the rich and famous. Anyone can experience summer Americana on the dunes of ACK, and with peak summer prices under $248 roundtrip from more than 20 U.S. departure airports, it's as affordable as anywhere for a summer 2025 trip.
LaGaurdia (LGA) passengers get the cheapest fare at just $177 for a July trip, but travelers as far away Madison (MSN), Milwaukee (MKE), and Minneapolis (MSP) all saw fares under $247 roundtrip, too!
Bottom Line
Domestic flight prices for next summer are looking really good, but there's reason to believe that they won't stay good for much longer.
If you can plan ahead, there are massive savings to be had for summer 2025 flights within the United States, because the airlines are making moves to raise prices for those peak summer travel months.
