The Best Time to Book a Hotel for Your Summer Vacation
Summer is one of the best times to explore a new place thanks to warm weather and school breaks, but that also means it can be one of the busiest and most expensive times to travel.
Knowing the right time to book peak season travel can make all the difference when it comes to savings, which is why TripAdvisor analyzed data on hotel bookings across 10 of America's most popular summer 2018 destinations.
To find the best time to book, the TripAdvisor team looked at pricing data from July 2016 through August 2017, finding the window "when hotel prices were consistently less than the destination average."
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The best booking window was the same across the board for all 10 destinations, with hotel bookings made exactly one month ahead of a trip showing the biggest savings.
In popular cities like New York City and Las Vegas, they found that booking a month ahead can even score you savings of up to 40 percent.
Below, you’ll find the full list of the top 10 most popular summer destinations for this year, exactly how much you can save when booking one month ahead, and the average nightly rates for TripAdvisor's hotels in each destination.
Savings Across the Top 10 Most Popular U.S. Summer Cities:
1. New York City: Savings of 40 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $277 per night
2. Las Vegas: Savings of 40 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $161 per night
3. Minneapolis: Savings of 37 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $190 per night
4. Washington, D.C.: Savings of 34 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $232 per night
5. Miami: Savings of 34 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $153 per night
6. Philadelphia: Savings of 33 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $202 per night
7. New Orleans: Savings of 32 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $224 per night
8. Atlanta: Savings of 31 percent when booing one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $184 per night
9. San Francisco: Savings of 31 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $297 per night
10. Pittsburgh: Savings of 25 percent when booking one month ahead; average summer hotel price of $190 per night