Which airlines let you hold a fare? (2026 fare hold guide)

As of November 2026, only a handful of airlines will hold a fare for you, and most of them charge for it. American Airlines offers a free 24-hour hold on select flights booked at least seven days out, and Emirates' US site offers a free 24-hour hold on Economy fares. United (FareLock), Copa (PriceLock), Turkish Airlines (Hold the Price), Qatar Airways, British Airways, KLM, Air France and Lufthansa sell paid holds lasting from one day to about two weeks. Delta, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue don't advertise a hold at all; they give you a 24-hour window to cancel for a full refund instead.

For longer than a week or two, you need a deposit-based payment plan, which we cover at the end. For the bigger picture, see our guide to locking in a flight price with a deposit.

Fare hold, 24-hour cancellation or price freeze: what's the difference?

"Price lock" can mean five different things, with very different costs:

A fare hold reserves an itinerary at a price without buying it; if you don't pay in time, it's cancelled. A 24-hour cancellation works the other way around: you pay in full and can undo it within a day. A price freeze from an app isn't an airline reservation at all, just the app's promise to cover some of a price increase if you book through it later.

What the US 24-hour rule actually requires

The rule people half-remember is in federal regulations at 14 CFR 259.5. It requires airlines to allow reservations to be held at the quoted fare "without payment, or cancelled without penalty" for at least 24 hours after the reservation is made, if you make it one week or more before the flight's departure.

Four details matter in practice:

• The airline chooses. The US Department of Transportation says an airline doesn't have to offer both. Most US airlines chose the 24-hour cancellation; American also offers a 24-hour hold on some flights.
• A week out, or it doesn't apply. Book six days before departure and the rule doesn't cover you, although an airline can choose to be more generous.
• It covers foreign airlines too. The rule applies to US airlines and to foreign airlines on flights to and from the United States, if they fly aircraft with 30 or more seats.
• It applies to airlines, not travel agencies. DOT guidance says the requirement doesn't extend to online travel agencies, which are free to set their own terms. If you book through an agency or app, read its cancellation policy.

DOT guidance also says a covered 24-hour cancellation must offer a full refund in the original form of payment, and that an airline offering a free 24-hour hold may charge a "fare lock" fee only for holds longer than that.

Airline-by-airline fare hold table (November 2026)

We checked each airline's own website in late 2026. Hold programs vary by the country site you book on, so treat this as a starting point and confirm the terms shown on your payment page.

"No hold found" means we couldn't find a fare hold on the airline's public website as of November 2026. Airlines sometimes offer options by phone or in particular markets that aren't advertised.

US airlines: one free hold, one paid hold, four refund windows

American Airlines

American's site says that in select markets you can hold a trip for free for up to 24 hours if you're booking at least seven days before departure. The option appears on the "Review and pay" page as "Hold for 24 hours"; if you don't see it, the flight doesn't qualify. You can hold only one trip per destination and timeframe, and American cancels duplicate holds.

United FareLock

United's FareLock lets you lock today's price and pay later, for up to seven days, for a fee. It covers flights operated by United and United Express, and you can buy it on united.com, in the app or through customer service. If you don't complete the purchase before the lock ends, the reservation is cancelled unless you chose automatic purchase. United doesn't publish a fixed price for FareLock; the fee depends on the itinerary and appears when you book.

Delta, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue

None of these four advertises an online fare hold. Instead, each offers a 24-hour cancellation window:

• Delta offers 24-hour risk-free cancellation for tickets bought directly from Delta, including its basic fares. Delta's pages also note that if you want to pay cash, you can reserve by phone and the fare is guaranteed until midnight the following day, by which point you pay at a Delta ticket counter.
• Southwest's customer service plan says unchanged reservations made a week or more before departure can be cancelled within 24 hours of booking for a full refund to the original form of payment.
• Alaska says you can cancel within 24 hours of buying for a full refund.
• JetBlue's customer service plan gives you 24 hours to cancel for a full refund if you booked seven or more days before departure, as long as you cancel the whole booking.

A 24-hour cancellation works like a free one-day hold, if you can pay the full fare upfront. On a debit card that money leaves your account immediately, and Delta notes that some banks may hold funds after a refund.

International airlines that will hold a fare

Emirates: Hold My Fare

Emirates' US site says you can hold an Economy Class fare for 24 hours at no cost, and the price stays the same while you decide. It isn't available on departures from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Greece, Japan or Mexico, on special offers or on partner flights, and Emirates says it can be used up to 24 days before your flight. If you don't pay within 24 hours, the fare is released. Some other Emirates country sites describe a 72-hour version with a small fee, so check the site you're booking on.

Qatar Airways: Hold my booking

Qatar Airways holds a booking for 24, 48 or 72 hours, depending on how far away the departure is, for a nonrefundable fee that varies by market and hold length. For flights departing the United States, the hold has to be paid at least three days before departure. Flights originating in Brazil and award bookings are excluded, and some itineraries with partner-operated flights may be too.

Turkish Airlines: Hold the Price

Turkish Airlines sells hold packages from 1 to 3 days up to 7 and 15 days on its US site. The useful twist: the fee is refunded once you complete the purchase within the hold period, and it's kept if you don't. Miles&Smiles Classic Plus, Elite and Elite Plus members can hold for free. One catch: Turkish says its free 24-hour cancellation doesn't apply to tickets bought with the Hold the Price option.

British Airways

British Airways lets you hold eligible British Airways and Iberia flights for up to 72 hours for a deposit of £5 per person on short-haul flights or £10 on long-haul ($5 or $10 when you book in dollars). Once you pay for the booking, BA refunds the deposit. If taxes, fees and charges rise while the booking is on hold, BA covers the increase; if they fall, your total goes down too. It isn't offered on itineraries departing from a list of countries that includes Argentina, Egypt, India, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

KLM and Air France: Time to Think

KLM's Time to Think holds a fare for up to three days when you book online, with the exact length shown when you choose it. On KLM's US fee table, a 72-hour hold costs 10 to 30 (in dollars, euros or pounds) when you book at least 14 days out, and a 24-hour hold costs 20 to 40 inside 14 days. The fee isn't refundable. Air France's Time to Think terms say the fee is never deducted from the fare, and that changing the itinerary, dates, cabin or number of travelers during the hold ends it.

Lufthansa: reservation with price guarantee

Lufthansa holds a reservation for 48 hours, and the hold can't be extended. The fee is charged separately and isn't applied to the fare, and Lufthansa's US customer service plan lists it as nonrefundable. You can't use it when paying with miles or a promo code, and you can't change the reservation during the 48 hours.

Copa: PriceLock

Copa's PriceLock reserves a fare for three or seven days on select flights operated by Copa Airlines and Copa Airlines Colombia, booked on copa.com or the Copa app. The fee is charged per traveler (not for infants), isn't applied to the fare, and isn't refunded, even if you cancel within 24 hours. A held reservation can't be changed.

Air Canada and Aeromexico

We found no public fare hold on either airline's website in November 2026. Air Canada refunds bookings cancelled within 24 hours of purchase to the original payment method.

Is a paid fare hold worth it?

A hold is a small, nonrefundable bet that the fare will go up before you're ready to buy. Here's a simple way to check whether the bet makes sense, using example numbers:

1. Add up the fee for everyone. A $15-per-traveler hold for a family of four is $60, and on most airlines you don't get it back.
2. Estimate the risk you're covering. Close to departure, a $15-per-person rise isn't unusual. In Defera's November 2026 look at Google Flights price histories on 16 routes, 46 of 47 trips departing within two weeks were more expensive 12 to 14 days before departure than at their cheapest point 3 to 5 weeks out. Our fare-data study has the details and the limits of that data.
3. Compare with buying and cancelling. If the airline offers a 24-hour full refund and you can cover the fare today, buying and cancelling if needed costs nothing.
4. Check what happens to the fee when you buy. With British Airways and Turkish Airlines, it comes back. With Copa, KLM, Air France, Qatar Airways and Lufthansa, it doesn't.

A hold is worth it when you're waiting on something specific and short, like a visa appointment or time off being approved. It's rarely worth it if you're hoping the price drops, since most holds lock the price you saw, not a lower one.

Third-party price freezes: Hopper and others

Hopper has offered Price Freeze in its app (check whether it's available for your route). It isn't an airline hold: you pay Hopper a fee, and if the price goes up during the freeze, Hopper covers the increase up to a limit when you book through it.

That limit matters. In July 2026 the Federal Trade Commission announced that Hopper would pay $35 million to settle allegations about its fees (a court entered the order in August). Among other things, the FTC alleged that Hopper didn't clearly disclose that Price Freeze only protects the price up to a certain amount, and only if the booking is still available, and that Hopper didn't apply the Price Freeze fee to the cost of the booking as it said it would. The order bars Hopper from misrepresenting fees and requires it to disclose total prices clearly.

Before buying any price freeze, check the fee, the maximum increase it covers and the expiry time. The DOT's 24-hour rule covers airlines, not apps, so the app's own cancellation terms apply to what you book.

Can you reserve a flight without paying at all?

Sometimes, briefly. As of November 2026, your options for a reservation with no payment are:

• American's free 24-hour hold, on select flights booked at least seven days out.
• Emirates' free 24-hour hold on Economy fares, on its US site.
• Delta's phone reservation for cash buyers, which guarantees the fare until midnight the next day, when you pay in person.

If you need an itinerary for a visa application, check exactly what the consulate asks for before paying anyone for a "reservation" document. An airline hold is a real reservation, but it expires in days, and a visa decision can take longer.

Defera bookings come with a downloadable Trip Statement, a PDF with your full itinerary and passenger names; whether a consulate accepts it is up to them, as our article on proof of onward travel explains.

When you need longer than a week: deposits and payment plans

Airline holds top out at about two weeks. If you're booking a December trip in August, you need something different, and two things are worth knowing:

A deposit doesn't always lock the price. United Vacations, for example, lets you hold a vacation package with a deposit from $250, but its price guarantee page says the price is guaranteed only once you complete checkout and receive a reservation number. Read what a deposit actually secures.

Layaway-style payment plans lock the price for the whole payment period. Defera is one example. You choose a flight, pay a deposit, and pay the rest in automatic weekly or bi-weekly payments. Once your booking is approved, your agreed-upon trip price is secured: it's protected from future fare increases as long as you stay in good standing on your plan.

Here's how a Defera deposit depends on how far away your trip is:

It works differently from an airline hold:

• It's a commitment, not an option. You're booking the trip and paying over time. If you cancel within 24 hours of booking, your deposit is refunded in full; after that, your cancellation screen shows the options for your trip.
• There's no credit check and no interest. Defera isn't a lender. The trip total at checkout already includes Defera's service fee and hold fee, and nothing is added later.
• The airline confirmation number comes at the end. It appears in Trips, and the airline emails you, once the plan is paid in full. Paying off early gets it to you sooner, with no penalty.
• There's a $0-down version on some fares. Defera Zero needs nothing at booking, on refundable fares from American, United, Southwest, JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic.

The trade-off: a fare hold costs little and commits you to nothing, but lasts days; a payment plan lasts until departure, but you're paying as you go. How Defera works walks through a booking.

How to place a fare hold: a step-by-step checklist

1. Search on the airline's own website or app. Most holds in this guide are sold only there.
2. Look for the option on the payment page. If it isn't there, that itinerary doesn't qualify.
3. Read the terms before paying. Check the length, whether the fee is per traveler or per booking, whether it's refunded or applied to the fare, and whether changes are allowed.
4. Note the exact expiry time and time zone, and set a reminder.
5. Use legal names exactly as they appear on each passport or ID.
6. Decide before the hold ends. If you buy, check whether the 24-hour cancellation still applies; Turkish Airlines excludes held bookings.
7. Screenshot the price and the terms, so you have a record.

If none of these holds fits your timeline, you can search flights on Defera to see deposit options for your dates.