Black Friday has fully crossed the Atlantic, and for once that's good news for European travellers. Even though the continent doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, airlines and hotel groups now run a full five-day stretch of sales, from pre-Black Friday teasers through Cyber Monday and on to Travel Tuesday (1 December in 2026). With fuel prices and living costs squeezing budgets, it's a realistic way to lock in 2027 holidays for less.
So when should you actually click buy? Skyscanner analysed the lowest average seat prices across the five-day window in 2025 and found Cyber Monday was the best day to book flights. Travel Tuesday can still deliver, though, precisely because most people have finished shopping by then — as Skyscanner's Laura Lindsay explains, that lull is when airlines and hotels drop tempting offers to get people planning again.
A batch of Europe's biggest carriers has already put Black Friday landing pages live for 2026, including easyJet, British Airways, Iberia, SAS, Jet2, Finnair, Air Europa and LOT Polish Airlines. Others that ran sales last year and are likely to repeat: Ryanair, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Turkish Airlines, Norwegian, TAP Air Portugal, Volotea, Aegean and Pegasus. Exact discounts are still under wraps, so the smartest move is joining airline mailing lists to get launch alerts.
One caveat if you're flying long-haul: Middle Eastern airlines generally skip Black Friday itself because of the significance of Friday in Islam. Look out instead for "White Friday" promotions, or sales timed around Ramadan and Eid.
Hotels are very much in the game too. Marriott, Accor, IHG and Hilton all ran Black Friday sales last year, and joining their free entry-level loyalty programmes can pay twice — you'll hear about the sale first, and members often get a deeper discount than the general public.
A few tactics to squeeze out the best price: set price alerts on Skyscanner or Google Flights so deals come to you, stay flexible on both dates and destination, and compare nearby airports at each end of the trip. Because deals are staggered across the weekend and into Tuesday, it's worth knowing your target route and rough price in advance so you can judge whether an offer is genuinely good.
If you're the kind of traveller who already knows where you want to go next summer, this five-day window is one of the few predictable moments in the year when fares and room rates drop across dozens of brands at once. Do a little homework now — mailing lists, loyalty sign-ups, alerts — and you'll be ready to book the moment prices dip. Source: Euronews Travel.
