Our Black Friday Predictions & A Penguin-Filled Rabbit Hole

Hey there, Travellers!

Friday the 13th - unlucky for some, but not for those of you who prefer to spend your day browsing flights and planning your next trip over sifting through emails in Outlook.

It's also a particularly lucky day for anyone who loves penguins; this week, I stumbled upon this lovely short film about travel writer Jamie Lafferty's quest to visit all 18 species of penguin in the wild. Now, I love travel quests as much as the next person, but when your goals involve reaching some of the most remote places on the planet, you really have to be determined.

Admittedly, most of us don't have all the time and money necessary to complete that kind of mission, but at least we can always live vicariously through those of us mad enough to try! You can follow Jamie's penguin-filled rabbit hole of an adventure in his book, An Inconvenience of Penguins (UK) or All the World's Penguins (US).

Try stopping yourself googling "how to get to Antarctica" after that. Good news, Navigator Olivia's already done some of the work for you.

Happy travels and safe landings,

Over the past few years, airlines have been dropping sales left, right, and center as that pandemic hangover has worn off and travel numbers have soared to pre-2020 levels and beyond. But are these sales actually worth it?

In this article, we’ve rounded up the best Black Friday deals from the most popular airlines we’ve seen in the past to shed some light on what you can expect from this year’s Black Friday sales on November 27, 2026, as well as on Cyber Monday (November 30, 2026) - and maybe even Travel Tuesday?

Round-trip flights to Europe under $300, Tahiti at $644 including a checked bag, and five-star flights to Osaka at $690 only scratched the surface of deals we have found from across the country.

It’s important to note that even though we’re super awesome at finding our members great deals, we aren’t fortune-tellers. The predictions we’ve made about 2026's Black Friday and Cyber Monday flight deals are based on past trends, with a pinch of our flight expertise thrown in.

Since the price of jet fuel has remained stubbornly high all year, it’s likely that prices might be a smidge higher across the board than a few years back. But we’re keeping our fingers and toes crossed that 2026 will be another year of (good) surprises!

Southwest Airlines

Free bags, open seating, and a generous change policy once made Southwest our favorite “no-frills” airline, hands down. But a lot has changed over the past two years, and they've recently embraced the same cost-cutting methods used by other low-cost carriers, and more or less becoming just like every other US airline. Nevertheless, the sales have stayed solid!

Their Black Friday discounts have traditionally offered domestic trips under $100 RT, but anything goes with the new Southwest.

What we expect in 2026

Southwest has ignored Black Friday in favor of Cyber Monday for the last five years now, and we expect that to continue. But hey, as long as the sales are good, it's all the same to us!

After five straight years of stellar sales from Southwest, our expectations are pretty high. It's possible that their recent cost-cutting trend will collide with the fuel spike and become an excuse to skimp out on discounts, but we're pretty hopeful that won't be the case. One thing's for sure, they'll definitely be the first place we look for domestic flights in 2026.

United Airlines

United will get you from A to B and beyond, with more frills than a budget airline (but still no carry-on on their lowest domestic fares).

We really love that they fly to some harder-to-reach places like India, Tahiti, and Japan, and in the distant past, they’ve thrown us a bone with heavy discounts on these routes.

In the last couple of years, they’ve focused more on short-haul destinations across the USA. But as they pursue a strategy of gradual international growth, we might see more faraway routes popping up in the future.

What we expect in 2026

Welp, there's no beating around the bush: United has disappointed us for two years now. Rather than releasing an actual sale, they've been offering minor discounts on select flights and packages that only work with a branded credit card. Lame. 

We're always open to being surprised, but we're not holding out too much hope with this one. If you're a United superfan with an airline credit card and tons of points, you might get lucky and snatch a decent deal. Otherwise, don't hold your breath.

Delta Air Lines

We were so excited to welcome Delta to this list in 2022! Skytrax’s best North American airline finally gave us something to look at, even if it wasn’t too spectacular. Sure, they double-crossed us in 2023, but they did come back with an... okay sale on domestic routes in 2024 and 2025.

Delta’s prices do skew a bit higher than other US airlines, but they make up for it with an insane level of service. We’re talking about a commitment to free wifi across all their planes, seat-back entertainment screens on even the shortest of routes, and a generous route network.

So here’s hoping they'll try a little harder with their sales this year.

What we expect in 2026

I mean, they did run a sale again in 2025, so they're kind of on an upward trajectory. Now we just need them to take the next step and run a really good sale.

Delta is one of the best airlines out there, so it's always worth checking for discounts. But we don't have especially high expectations, especially since the US carriers have been so stingy with sales lately.

American Airlines

We had high expectations for American Airlines last year, after they surprised us with some killer discounts in 2024. Unfortunately, the results were... meh.

As the world’s biggest airline with the most robust network, American dropping a BF sale at all is always good to see. We'd just hoped for something a little more flashy and a little less blah than decent domestic discounts and so-so international routes.

When they do offer sales, they typically focus on short-haul domestic routes. But American has an enormous international network with flights all over the globe, so there's always the chance for some top-tier fares to the rest of the world too.

What we expect in 2026

We expect American to drop some kind of sale, but we're not getting our hopes up too high this time around. Most likely, we'll see more domestic fares in that "solid deal but nothing to brag about" range.

But who knows! They might choose to leverage their global network and surprise us with some great international ones too. They've done a little Euro expansion this year, with new routes to spots like Iceland and Vienna, and we'd be over the moon to see those get the Black Friday treatment.

Avianca

Avianca regularly comes out in blazing glory with huge price cuts all across Central & South America, despite rarely ever announcing a sale. Over here in cheap flight land, we feel like we see a new drop from them every single day, and we just have to keep letting our members know about them.

When they finally drop their BF sales, they’re usually a little timid in comparison. Their recent events offered some solid economy-class discounts, but nothing earth-shattering. So we were a little shocked when they dropped one of the best sales of 2025 with 55% off fares all over Central and South America! Great job, Avianca!

What we expect in 2026

Avianca has been fairly consistent with their Black Friday sales, but they defied our prediction last year with some terrific discounts on routes all over Latin America, particularly around their home base in Colombia. That was one slice of humble pie we were very happy to eat.

Of course, a single data point does not a trend make, so we're not going to just assume Avianca will be that cool again this year. But we're cautiously optimistic - definitely give their sale page a look when Black Friday rolls around.

Frontier Airlines

Frontier is a domestic budget airline, so we never really expect much out of them. Flying with them can be a little, well, miserable, and it’s not usually worth covering the sales they have.

However, last year's Cyber Monday sale took us completely by surprise! It was so good we just had to overlook Frontier's eye-rolling baggage policies and add them to this article, and we begged them not to make us regret it.

Sure enough, the old dog came through. We rounded up a sizeable pile of dirt-cheap domestics, and not just the usual <1 hour hops. Deals included Newark to Orlando at $40 RT, Seattle to Phoenix at $53 RT, and double-digit non-stops to Vegas from almost every departure we cover.

Well played, Frontier. Well played.

What we expect in 2026

Ever since Spirit joined the spirit realm, Frontier has lost its primary competitor. It's totally possible that they'll start getting cocky and add "Black Friday sales" to their pile of budget cuts.

That said, after two excellent sales back-to-back, we're still cautiously optimistic. While their longer domestics have been cracking that $100 RT barrier an awful lot since the fuel spike, they've continued to offer their classic super short hops at basement prices.

So in spite of it all, Frontier just might go for the three-peat. Since their standard prices are so cheap, all we really want to see is a rerun of last year: longer trips for the same low price.

Keep reading for Alaska, Aer Lingus, Copa Airlines, and more...

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All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

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• A new “worst thing ever found by airport security” just dropped: 3,000 rare tarantulas, stuffed inside dirty socks. 
  
  
• And finally, is it really a British luxury hotel if you can’t press a button to summon a Greggs sausage roll?