A handful of airports—including Seattle-Tacoma, New York JFK, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Orlando, and other busy hubs—offer Reserve by Clear, a free service that allows travelers to book a time slot in the security line online before arriving at the airport. Simply input your flight information, choose your time, and submit your name (no membership required).
To see how busy the airport is likely to be on specific days and times, download the MyTSA app on your phone to view predictions based on historical data. The app also shows the current average wait time for security checkpoints across an airport’s terminals.
Solving luggage and boarding woes
Since every flight is likely to be crowded or completely sold out, you’ll want to consider priority boarding to ease tension and secure overhead bin space. “If you’re traveling American Airlines, make sure to join their loyalty program—that alone gets you earlier boarding and you probably won’t have to gate check your carry on bag,” Leff says.
On Southwest and United, you can pay separately to add priority boarding to your ticket, which gets you on the plane before other economy passengers. On Delta, consider upgrading to Comfort Plus, which grants earlier boarding and dedicated bin space.
To avoid fighting for carry-on space or checking your bag and crossing your fingers it doesn’t get lost, shipping your luggage in advance can circumvent airport-associated risks entirely. “Consider using services like Luggage Free or Luggage Forward to ship your larger and oversized luggage to your destination,” says Michael Holtz, a travel specialist with SmartFlyer.
What to do if your holiday flight is canceled
Cancellations usually mean waiting hours for the attention of already-swamped ticketing agents to get on the next flight out. To avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, Snyder advises using every customer service avenue available. “If you’re at the airport when a flight cancels, get in line,” he says. “At the same time, get on the phone with the airline, try the Twitter/X team, go online to the airline website, and even try the airline app. Wherever you get help first, that’s the best.”
Remember that if the airline you booked with doesn’t have any desirable flights, you can try asking if they’ll book you with another carrier—but this doesn’t always work. “Some airlines will book you on other airlines while some won’t,” Snyder says. “It can also depend upon why the first flight is delayed or canceled. It can never hurt to ask.”
Travelers can check which airlines are open to endorsing tickets to another carrier on the DOT’s cancellations page, according to Leff. “But the other airline has to have seats available to put you on, and during the holidays seats can be scarce,” he says.
When flights get really snarled due to weather, even putting the smallest amount of distance between you and the storm is an improvement. “When there’s bad weather you want to treat it like the zombie apocalypse and keep moving,” Leff says. “Get closer to your destination. Get out of the zone of weather. Take flights that push you away from where the problem is even if it means connecting and traveling out of your way.”
If you get stuck, remember that the right travel rewards credit card could hold some useful benefits, if you used it to buy your airline tickets. “Choose one that has trip delay and baggage delay coverage that can pick up expenses you incur if you’re forced to overnight somewhere during your journey, or to buy things while your bags are lost,” Leff says.
