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DALLAS — When it comes to holiday travel plans, good things may reach to those who waited.

The major U.S. airlines hold divide many fares for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

The airlines, enduring their vanquish year ago at least 2005, may see the price-cutting as necessary in a slumping economy that could cut into both leisure and business travel. Airfare experts say they typically don’t see this philanthropic of price-cutting until the last couple of weeks in the presence of big holidays.

Northwest Airlines started the rush Tuesday night through a broad holiday pass sale, and most other major carriers matched the prices Wednesday, according to Rick Seaney, chief executive of Web position FareCompare.com.

“It’session by far the most broad-based fare sale we’ve tracked in at least 18 months,” Seaney said Thursday, “and this is the earliest I’ve ever seen one.”

Tom Parsons, great executive of discount-travel site Bestfares.com, said in many cases travelers can still find better deals by shopping around and considering alternate airports.

“I’ve been looking instead of this sale for two or three weeks,” Parsons before-mentioned. “When I finally saw it, it was kind of a letdown.”

Parsons said the cuts ranged up to 25 percent off during the term of tickets bought 21 or 30 days ahead of travel. He said travelers using proxy airports that typically have higher prices give by will get the biggest breaks.

But there are cheaper fares on routes in which place the big airlines compete with low-cost carriers such to the degree that Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran, he said.

Some of the fares be in possession of blackout dates on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 — the Sunday and Monday posterior Thanksgiving — and Dec. 20. And there are only a handful of “super off-peak” days, as Northwest calls them.

Some of the cuts are dramatic. Delta shaved the cheapest price for an Atlanta-Nashville, Tenn., round short journey around Thanksgiving from nearly $500 to $238, Seaney said. The cheapest Minneapolis-Seattle flock is $248.

In most cases, the prices are good until at least late November.

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