Holiday Travelers are Booking Earlier This Year

By Our Town Gwinnett Staff

Although the summer travel season just ended, Georgians are already beginning to lock in their holiday travel plans. In fact, according to a new AAA survey, 69% of residents are already planning to take a holiday vacation. More than half of them (55%) booked holiday plans earlier this year due to higher travel prices. Three-fifths of holiday travelers (61%) say they plan at least one flight during the holiday season.

“Whether you plan to book a flight, cruise, or visit a theme park, it’s best to get ahead of the holiday rush and finalize your plans now,” said Debbie Haas, Vice President of Travel for AAA – The Auto Club Group. “This will help ensure you get the itinerary you want at a competitive price. While it’s possible that those who wait until the last minute could catch a lower rate, their preferred options may already be gone.”

Thanksgiving Travel

Two-thirds of Georgia travelers (66%) are planning a trip with at least one overnight stay for Thanksgiving. The busiest travel days will be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. Consider booking a flight on Sunday or Monday before Thanksgiving and Saturday after the holiday. Airports should be less busy, and flights should have more availability.

Christmas Travel

The timing is spread out for Georgians planning a Christmas trip. Only

10% have already finalized plans, as a fifth waited until September (20%), with more waiting until October (38%) and November (19%) to book. Regardless of what date Christmas falls on, most travelers depart two to four days before the holiday. Since Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year, travelers should expect the busiest days at the airport to be Friday and Saturday before the holiday.

AAA’s Advice for Booking a Flight

• Book early for the best combination of availability and price. Most travelers want to skip layovers and get right to their destination. That means nonstop flights will fill up fast, especially those going cross-country and internationally.

• Book a direct flight that leaves early in the morning. Afternoon and evening flights are more susceptible to delays/cancellations due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances. Connecting flights multiplies the risk of something going wrong.

• Consider traveling a day or two earlier than planned. Even if you face delays, you are still likely to arrive on time.

• If your flight has connections, build between flights in a couple of hours. This way, if your first flight is delayed, you are less likely to miss your second one.

Flight Concerns

One-third of Georgians (34%) say they are less likely to fly this year because they’re concerned about flight delays and cancellations. AAA urges travelers to consider travel insurance, which provides financial compensation if your flight is affected by covered reasons like severe winter weather, which can ruin your plans.

“Given recent challenges with air travel, we are seeing more and more passengers opt for travel insurance,” Haas said. “Travel Insurance is such a valuable resource for air travelers because it provides financial benefits for lost or delayed luggage, flight cancellations, and flight delays of as little as three hours.”

More People are Gifting Experiences Instead of Presents

AAA travel advisors say they’re seeing more people gift travel experiences to loved ones instead of presents. That means those people are

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Catching Up with FASTSIGNS of Snellville

By Kristen Eleveld

The premier place to find quality, customized signage and other visual aids is FASTSIGNS in Snellville. With a decade of serving the Snellville community and beyond under their belt, the team at FASTSIGNS of Snellville has offered incredible customer service and high-quality signs for a wide variety of local businesses and residents. As they have continued to grow alongside the community they have served for so long, FASTSIGNS of Snellville has brought on new equipment to offer even more options for their clientele.

“We are so excited to let you know that over the last few years we have re-invested our profits into acquiring more technology to be able to do more under our roof to better serve our community,” said Edward MacFarlane, who owns and operates the franchise alongside his wife, Kareen. “We just added two new machines that will allow us to produce eighty percent or more of our products in-house.”

The newest additions to the machine family, as Edward calls them, are a 25-watt laser, which allows FASTSIGNS to engrave materials such as name badges, plaques, small acrylic letters, and much more, and a Mutoh UV texture printer. The UV texture printer machine gives FASTSIGNS the capability of producing ADA compliant signage for all commercial applications, along with the ability to create custom dimensional signage on a smaller scale. The team at FASTSIGNS of Snellville is excited about using these new machines to offer even more options to the businesses and community members in the area.

The process for getting your custom sign made is simple. Just describe your vision to the team at FASTSIGNS and they can help you make it a reality. While client input is a huge factor when it comes to designing your visual aid, FASTSIGNS of Snellville has an incredible team of graphic designers who will offer additional details and ideas to make your sign look the best it possibly can. The same goes for name badges, electronic signs, menu boards – anything and everything that FASTSIGNS provides comes with the graphic design expertise they offer.

“Designing for signage is what we do best!” said Edward. “Our customers have a lot of input into the design process, as they tell us what

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