Last-minute flights over the holidays will cost you more this year

People still looking to book trips home to visit family or take a vacation during the holidays need to act fast — and prepare for sticker shock.

Airline executives say that based on bookings, they expect huge demand for flights over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Travel experts say the best deals for airfares and hotels are already gone.

On social media, plenty of travelers think they are being gouged. It's an understandable sentiment when government data shows that airfares in October were up 43% from a year earlier, and U.S. airlines reported a combined profit of more than $2.4 billion in the third quarter.