Visa Survey Finds Physical Gifts Outrank Experiences in Holiday Spending Plans

U.S. consumers included travel and live-event tickets among their desired holiday gifts, but prioritized physical items over experiences in spending plans, revealing a gap between wish lists and budgets.

In Visa’s 2026 Holiday Spending Shift Survey, 60% named travel and 55% named live-event tickets among the gifts they were most excited to give or receive. Physical items were a spending priority for 27%, compared with 15% who prioritized experiences.

Morning Consult conducted the online survey for Visa with 1,016 U.S. adults from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, 2026. Responses were weighted to approximate the U.S. population, with a stated margin of error of 3 percentage points.

A separate quarterly consumer survey by Visa Business and Economic Insights, fielded in October 2026, found respondents planned to spend an average of $777 on holiday gifts. That was up 5.6% from $736 in 2025.

Anonymized credit-card transaction data showed that households earning more than $200,000 were the only income group to increase both holiday airfare bookings and airfare spending in September. For trips scheduled to depart Nov. 1, 2026, through Jan. 15, 2027, bookings rose 29% and spending increased 38% from September 2025. The figures show differences by income group but do not establish what drove them.

Airline fares rose 22.4% in the 12 months through September 2026, while the Consumer Price Index increased 3.7% over the same period.

Visa forecast U.S. holiday retail sales would rise 4.5% in November and December, the strongest growth since 2021. It estimated holiday-related prices would rise 3.4%, leaving inflation-adjusted spending growth at 1.1%, compared with 1.3% in 2025. The forecast measures retail sales across payment types and excludes autos, gas stations and restaurants. TokenPost previously covered the holiday retail sales forecast.

“Consumers are still spending, but they’re making deliberate choices about where their holiday dollars go,” said Michael Brown, Visa’s principal U.S. economist.

The surveys measured gift preferences and planned budgets, not completed purchases. The airfare figures show changes in bookings and spending but do not explain the reasons behind them.