Fare study
Holiday fares · Dec 2026 – Jan 2027
scraped 2026-08-27 · treat any single quote as ±4%
One adult, economy, roundtrip, USD, taxes included. BNA is Nashville International. EZE is Ministro Pistarini, the long-haul airport for Buenos Aires.
The absolute floor is $1,305 on a LATAM plus Delta mix. That one flies out through JFK in 18h00m and splits the trip across two airlines. The extra $37 buys the fastest routing.
The bar is the cheapest one-stop itinerary on that date pair, about 12 to 13 hours each way. The tick mark is the lowest number any engine printed for the same dates, including ads, self-transfers and headline teasers. Those cheaper numbers buy longer, messier routings.
Leave Dec 15 or earlier and a one-stop itinerary costs $1,342 to $1,545. Leave Dec 18 or Dec 21 and it costs $2,006 or more. The long stay is the cheap one here.
The pre-Christmas rush is Fri Dec 18 to Sun Dec 20. Fares that leave in that window jump. Moving the departure three days earlier, to Dec 15, cuts the cheapest one-stop fare from $2,464 to $1,342.
This calendar has two of them: Dec 26 to 28, then Jan 2 to 3. New Year's Day falls on a Friday, so the back-to-work return lands on the weekend after it.
Leave before the rush. Come back Jan 8 or later. Pair E clears both peaks, which is why the longest trip is also the cheapest.
Sorted by price. Each row is one itinerary seen on one engine, so the same flight can appear more than once. Scroll the table sideways on a small screen.
| Depart | Return | Price | Airline | Route | Stops and notes | Source |
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International fares sit about 19% above last year for this window. Spirit stopped flying on 2026-05-02, which removed capacity. Sale fares carry blackout dates from Dec 20 to Jan 5, so a deal alert will not cover these dates. Waiting is the risk, not the saving.
The $1,342 fare is AA Basic Economy (American's cheapest fare class, with no checked bag, no seat choice and no changes). Add roughly $75 to $150 roundtrip for one checked bag before you compare it to anything else.
AEP (Aeroparque Jorge Newbery) is the downtown airport and a shorter taxi ride. Every AEP fare in this study costs about $400 more and adds a stop. Search EZE. The BUE metro code buys you nothing.
Buying BNA to MIA and MIA to EZE as two tickets saves about $400, but only on the expensive Dec 18 pair. On Dec 15 it saves $27. Two tickets mean no protected connection, so one missed leg is your problem.
The non-holiday floor on BNA to EZE is $1,092 roundtrip. The typical band is $1,215 to $1,386. So $1,342 over Christmas lands inside the normal band. For peak dates, that is a good price.
Nashville has no nonstop to Buenos Aires. MIA on American and ATL (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta) on LATAM and Delta are the two efficient connections, both about 12 to 13 hours door to door. Everything else adds hours, not savings.