AAA projects 45 million Americans will travel between May 21-25, a new Memorial Day record. 39.1 million of them will drive. The other 3.66 million will fly. And almost all of them are booking last-minute, four days out, into a market that’s been warped by the Strait of Hormuz crisis in ways that make this weekend genuinely complicated to price.

Here’s the squeeze: gas is at $4.50+ per gallon nationally, the highest Memorial Day pump price since 2022. Jet fuel has roughly doubled since February, and airlines are adding fuel surcharges to fares that were already tracking at an $800 average round-trip. Neither option is cheap. But the tools available right now can still find you meaningful savings — if you know where to look and what to skip.

This is the decision guide for where you are today, not three weeks ago.

Google Flights, GasBuddy, and a few deal newsletters are the tools that still work right now.

Quick Decision Table

Situation	Best Move	Tool
Flight hunter, flexible dates	Search date grid + turn on alerts	Google Flights
Last-minute deal seeker	Check deal newsletters now	Dollar Flight Club, Thrifty Traveler
Road tripper, route not locked	Reroute around expensive gas states	GasBuddy route planner
Fly vs. drive still undecided	Run the actual cost comparison	Rome2rio or a spreadsheet
Flying with a fuel surcharge concern	Check domestic vs. international** separately	Skyscanner or KAYAK
Departing Thursday or Friday	Leave before 3pm or after 7pm	Waze (live traffic)

Bottom line for most travelers: Domestic flights have taken a smaller hit than international, Caribbean deals under $450 RT still exist, and road trips are manageable with a bit of fuel planning. Don’t skip the departure timing section below — it’s worth reading before you set your alarm.

What Makes This Memorial Day Different

The Strait of Hormuz, effectively shut since late February when the US-Israel conflict with Iran escalated, routes roughly 20% of global oil supply. That one choke point is why gas at the pump crested $4.50 nationally (Oregon hit $5.32 already) and why jet fuel is trading near levels not seen since before the financial crisis.

Airlines have responded by cutting capacity. Lufthansa grounded 27 short-haul regional aircraft through its Lufthansa CityLine subsidiary. Qatar Airways grounded its 8 Airbus A380 aircraft through April–May 2026 and suspended more than 60 destinations. Emirates and Etihad trimmed hundreds of thousands more. Spirit filed its wind-down in early May, citing fuel cost as the trigger. Internationally, Japan Airlines bumped its North America fuel surcharge to $351 per ticket. Virgin Atlantic added £50-360 depending on cabin class.

The domestic picture is different — and this matters for Memorial Day specifically. US domestic round-trips are averaging $800 according to AAA’s forecast, which is actually 6% cheaper than the same window last year. Fuel surcharges on US domestic routes haven’t hit the same way international ones have, partly because of how domestic airfares are structured. Deals still exist. They’re just running out.

The road trip math is also more nuanced than it looks. $4.50/gallon sounds punishing, but if you’re driving a 30 MPG car and the flight would cost $800 per person, the break-even math can still favor driving for groups of two or more. What changes the calculation: your specific route, your vehicle’s actual fuel economy, and how much you’re willing to pay to not sit in a car for 8+ hours.

Should You Fly or Drive This Memorial Day?

Here’s the quick version for someone trying to make this call today:

Fly if:

1. You’re traveling solo or as a couple and the destination is 400+ miles away
2. You can find a domestic fare under $400 round-trip (Caribbean deals are still hitting this number from some departure cities)
3. Your destination doesn’t have a cheap or easy alternative airport option for car access
4. You have TSA PreCheck or Global Entry — airport friction is lower, which matters when you’re buying two days of actual vacation time

Drive if:

1. You’re a family of three or more — the per-person fuel cost scales in your favor
2. Your destination is under 6 hours one way and parking won’t eat the savings
3. Your route passes through low-gas-price states you can take advantage of (more on this below)
4. You’ve already got a loyalty hotel booked and the flight cost savings don’t justify the upgrade math

The honest answer: For most single or couple travelers going to a beach destination 500+ miles from home, flying is probably still cheaper and definitely less exhausting. For families, the road trip math looks much more competitive even at $4.50/gallon.

Last-Minute Flight Tools That Still Find Deals

Google Flights

Not because it always has the cheapest fares, but because its date grid and price calendar are the fastest way to identify the cheapest departure window when you have any date flexibility at all. Searching for a fixed date on Memorial Day weekend without checking the surrounding days is how people overpay by $150. The date grid shows you the full week at a glance; the price is often meaningfully different on Thursday morning versus Friday afternoon.

The Google Flights AI features and Canvas view are worth using here specifically because they contextualize whether a price is cheap for the route or just cheap-sounding. A $380 flight to Fort Lauderdale from Chicago is a good deal. A $380 flight to Orlando from an airport two hours from you is a different calculation.

Skyscanner for Budget Carrier Coverage

Google Flights misses some low-cost carrier inventory, particularly on routes where Spirit historically had a presence and where regional carriers operate. With Spirit gone, routes that had budget competition are now less covered — but Skyscanner tends to index LCCs more reliably. Run the same search in both. The Google Flights vs. Skyscanner comparison covers the specific gaps each tool has. The short version: use Google for interface and date flexibility, cross-check with Skyscanner for budget carrier fares.

Dollar Flight Club and Thrifty Traveler

If you haven’t subscribed yet, this is one of those situations where checking their current alerts is worth a few minutes right now. Dollar Flight Club had Caribbean and Florida deals identified as of this week. Thrifty Traveler tracks mistake fares and last-minute drops and is useful for checking what’s actually moving in real time.

What still looks workable for last-minute Memorial Day flights: Caribbean destinations (Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Bahamas, Aruba) under $450 round-trip exist from multiple US departure cities, particularly from Southeast hubs. Fort Lauderdale and Orlando are pricing in the $300-$380 range from several Midwest and Northeast airports. Mexico remains possible from Southwest US cities. International Europe and Asia? Those fuel surcharges have eaten the deal math.

KAYAK for multi-airline itinerary building. If your cheapest option involves two carriers and your travel dates have flexibility, KAYAK’s flexible search handles this better than most tools. The KAYAK Ask AI vs. Google Flights comparison breaks down where each is stronger — KAYAK wins on complex multi-airline routing, Google wins on date flexibility visualization.

One thing to flag: with airline capacity down across international routes, you’re looking at higher load factors on the domestic flights that exist. A deal that shows availability today may genuinely not be there in 12 hours. Set alerts rather than checking manually, and book when you find something acceptable.

Road Trip Fuel Management Tools

The goal with road trip fuel planning at $4.50/gallon isn’t to drive an extra 40 miles out of your way for gas. It’s to take advantage of price differentials that exist along your existing route with minimal friction.

GasBuddy for route-based fuel planning. GasBuddy’s trip cost calculator and along-route gas price map is the most practical tool here. Enter your origin, destination, and vehicle fuel economy, and it shows you gas station prices along the route so you can plan fill-ups at cheaper stations rather than stopping at the first exit in an expensive corridor. The free version works fine. The paid GasBuddy+ tier adds price predictions and a GasBuddy card that claims to save 25 cents per gallon at the pump — that math works out to $3-5 per fill-up on a 12-gallon tank, so the $10/month cost barely pencils out for a single holiday weekend trip. The route planner tool alone is the reason to use it, not the card.

The biggest along-route price variation tends to happen at state lines. Colorado is typically cheaper than California; Tennessee cheaper than Virginia. If your route crosses state lines, knowing where the price drops is worth a two-minute check before you leave.

Waze for real-time rerouting. During holiday weekend traffic, Waze’s live rerouting around congestion is genuinely useful — not just for time savings but because stop-and-go traffic on an interstate burns 20-30% more fuel than consistent highway speed. This matters at $4.50/gallon in a way it didn’t matter at $3.17/gallon (which was the Memorial Day average last year). Rerouting around a backup isn’t just about your ETA; it’s about not burning an extra $8 sitting on I-95.

AAA TripTik and the AAA app for a second data source on fuel prices along the route if you’re a member. AAA’s gas price map is updated frequently and tends to be accurate. The membership also gives you roadside assistance, which isn’t trivial when you’re driving in holiday weekend conditions.

For route selection: if your destination has two reasonable approaches (a major interstate and a state highway route, for example), check both in GasBuddy. Secondary state highways sometimes pass through towns with meaningfully cheaper gas — smaller towns with local independent stations rather than interstate exit stations, which price at a premium.

The best road trip planning apps for 2026 covers the broader toolkit in more depth. For Memorial Day specifically, the priorities are fuel cost management and real-time traffic rerouting — not the itinerary planning features those apps also have.

When to Leave: The Congestion Math

AAA’s traffic forecast for this weekend is specific and useful:

Worst times to drive: Thursday May 21 and Friday May 22 between 3pm and 6pm. This is the departure surge — people leaving work early, school pickups happening, and everyone converging on interstates at the same time. INRIX data typically shows 3-4x normal travel times on major corridors during this window. If you’re driving to the beach, leaving at noon (to arrive before the surge) or after 7pm (after it clears) is meaningfully better than leaving at 4pm.

Best day to drive: Sunday May 24. The inbound crowd from the previous weekend hasn’t built yet, and the holiday return traffic peaks on Monday afternoon, not Sunday. If you have flexibility on the outbound leg, Saturday and Sunday departures are cleaner than Thursday or Friday.

Monday May 25 return: AAA flags Monday afternoon as a high-congestion window for returns. If you can leave Monday morning before noon or Tuesday morning, you’re in better shape. The 3pm-7pm Monday return crush is real on major interstates near beach and lake destinations.

If you’re flying, peak departure days are Thursday-Friday (mirror of road traffic) and Sunday-Monday for returns. Flying Tuesday has historically been lower-demand — but with capacity cuts this summer, the Tuesday discount effect is less pronounced than it used to be. Check the price calendar rather than assuming off-peak days save you money; the data this year may not match the usual pattern.

A Note on the Fuel Surcharge Risk

One thing to watch specifically on international flight bookings made right now: fuel surcharges are being added mid-booking-cycle on some routes. Japan Airlines’ $351 surcharge on North America routes applies to tickets issued between May 1 and June 30. If you’re booking international travel for a future trip while also sorting out Memorial Day plans, check the full ticketing breakdown before purchasing. The base fare and the surcharges are displayed separately, and the surcharge has become a meaningful part of the total cost.

For domestic Memorial Day travel specifically, the surcharge situation is less severe. US carriers haven’t moved to the same surcharge model that international carriers are using. The $800 average domestic RT includes everything — taxes, fees, fuel recovery charges. That’s the number to compare against your road trip calculation.

The Europe fuel crisis summer flights guide has more detail on how the seat cuts are affecting summer availability if you’re planning beyond this weekend.

The Bottom Line

This Memorial Day weekend costs more to travel than last year. That’s real. Gas at $4.50/gallon hurts, the domestic RT average is $800, and the international fuel surcharges are genuinely punishing.

But last-minute domestic deals still exist. Caribbean and Florida routes under $450 RT are available from multiple US cities right now, today. Road trips are manageable with a bit of fuel planning. The timing windows for driving are clear: avoid Thursday and Friday afternoons, drive Sunday if you can.

The tools that matter most this weekend: Google Flights for the date grid and price alerts, GasBuddy for along-route fuel pricing, Waze for live traffic rerouting during the departure surge. None of them are complicated. All of them are free.

The worst version of this weekend is booking at face value without checking the date grid or departure timing, stopping for gas at the first interstate exit because you didn’t plan fill-ups, and sitting in the 4pm Friday parking lot on I-95. The better version takes about 20 minutes of planning with the tools above.

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Traffic congestion forecast and travel mode data per AAA’s Memorial Day 2026 forecast. Gas price data per AAA Fuel Prices and current regional reporting. Fuel crisis context per Al Jazeera’s airline capacity reporting. Flight deal availability changes daily — verify current pricing before booking.