NEW YORK (AP) — Chain stores have Black Friday. Online marketplaces have Cyber Monday. For local businesses, it’s Small Business Saturday.

In the last 20 years, more segments of the retail industry have vied for their own piece of the holiday shopping season. The travel trade has firmly joined the trend with another post-Thanksgiving sales push: Travel Tuesday.

On the same day as the nonprofit world’s Giving Tuesday, airlines, hotels, cruise ship companies, travel booking platforms and tour operators get in on the annual spirit to spend by promoting one-day deals. Consumer advocates say there are legitimate savings to be had but also chances to be misled by marketing that conveys a false sense of urgency.

“People see ‘40 percent off’ and assume it’s a once-in-a-lifetime steal, without recognizing that the underlying price may have been inflated or that the same itinerary was cheaper last month.” Sally French, a travel expert at personal finance site NerdWallet, said.

She and other seasoned travelers advised consumers who want to see if they can save money by booking trips on Travel Tuesday to do research in advance and to pay especially close pay to the fine print attached to offers.

People hoping to score last-minute deals for Christmas or New Year’s should double-check for blackout dates or other restrictions, recommended Lindsay Schwimer, a consumer expert for the online travel site Hopper.

It’s also wise to to keep an eye out for nonrefundable fares, resort fees, double occupancy requirements or upgrade conditions that may be hidden within advertised discounts, according to French.

Shoppers should be wary of travel packages with extra transportation options or add-on offers, French said. Instead of lowering fares or room rates, some companies use statement credits, extra points, included amenities and bundled extras as a way to tempt potential customers, she said.

“Many travel brands want to keep sticker prices high to maintain an aura of luxury, but they still need to fill planes, ships and hotel rooms,” French said. “Add-on perks are their workaround.”

Consumers who are prepared rather than impulsive and on the lookout for the up-sell are in a much better position to identify authentic bargains, consumer experts stressed. Knowing what a specific trip would typically cost and comparison shopping can help expose offers based on inflated underlying costs and whether the same itinerary might have been cheaper at other times, they said.

“Compare prices, check your calendar and make sure the trip you’re booking is something you genuinely want, not something you bought because a countdown timer pressured you,” French said. “What gets glossed over is that the best deal might be not booking anything at all if it doesn’t align with your plans.”

Travel Tuesday came about based on existing industry trends. In 2017, Hopper analyzed historical pricing data and found that in each of the nine previous years, the biggest day for post-Thanksgiving travel discounts was the day after Cyber Monday.

The site named the day Travel Tuesday. The number of offers within that time-targeted window and the number of travelers looking for them has since expanded.

“Nearly three times as many trips were planned on Travel Tuesday last year compared to Black Friday,” Hopper’s Schwimer said. “We continue to see growth in the day, year over year, as more travel brands and categories offer deals.”

The event’s origin story is in with the National Retail Federation coined Cyber Monday in 2005 as a response to the emerging e-commerce era. American Express came up with Small Business Saturday in 2010 to direct buyers and their dollars to smaller retailers, credit card fees and all.

A report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company last year noted that November and December tend to be slow months for travel bookings, making Travel Tuesday a “marketing moment” that could help boost revenue.

Hotel, cruise and and airline bookings by U.S. travelers increased significantly on Travel Tuesday 2023 compared with the two weeks before and after the day, the report’s authors wrote, citing data provided by the travel marketing platform Sojern.

While Travel Tuesday so far has been mostly confined to the United States and Canada, “European travel companies can anticipate the possibility that Travel Tuesday will become a growing phenomenon in their region, given that other shopping days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday have spread beyond North America,” the report stated.

Vivek Pandya, lead insights analyst for Adobe Analytics, which tracks online spending, said consumers have more tools than ever this holiday season to help them determine if deals hold up to scrutiny.

“Social journeys, influencers providing promo codes and values, and generative AI platforms taking all that in – the prices, the social conversation, the reviews – and giving guidance to the consumer, that’s a very different, dynamic kind of journey consumers are taking than they have in previous seasons,” Pandya said.

Both he and French emphasized that prices rise and fall based on multiple factors, and that the winter holidays are not the only major promotional period of the year.

“We now have dozens of consumer spending ‘holidays,’” French said. “Amazon alone keeps adding new versions of Prime Day. So if you don’t buy on Travel Tuesday, you haven’t missed your moment.”

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The Associated Press receives support from the Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

The IDF released body-camera footage Friday from a rare face-to-face gun battle in southern Syria, where troops from the 55th Brigade were fired on while arresting members of al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, a Sunni terrorist group Israel identifies as part of the wider Muslim Brotherhood network. 

The cross-border gun battle comes as the Trump administration moves to target Brotherhood affiliates and tensions spike between Netanyahu and Syria’s interim president.

The overnight operation took place in the Beit Jann area, roughly 10 kilometers inside Syria, under the 210th Division. According to the IDF, troops entered the area to detain suspects involved in planting IEDs and planning future attacks against Israel, including potential rocket fire. Two suspects were arrested before an exchange of fire erupted.

Six IDF soldiers were wounded, including three in serious condition. Several terrorists were killed, the IDF said, and the suspects were transferred to Israel for interrogation.

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Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, founded as the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has cooperated with Hamas and Hezbollah, maintaining infrastructure in southern Lebanon and along the Syria-Lebanon border. The IDF says it has struck the organization’s sites in Syria and Lebanon repeatedly during the current war.

Channel 12 political correspondent Amit Segal noted Friday that the incident marks the first time since December 2024 — when Israeli forces took control of the Syrian side of Mount Hermon — that Israeli troops were wounded in a Syrian firefight.

Segal wrote: “Could Syria become the IDF’s new Lebanon? … With six soldiers wounded overnight, the big question is whether this is a one-off event, or if it signals the beginning of a long, uncomfortable Israeli presence in Syria.”

Tensions between Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have intensified since Sharaa’s unprecedented visit to Washington earlier this month. Sharaa met President Donald Trump at the White House for discussions on sanctions relief and counterterrorism coordination, making him the first Syrian leader to visit Washington since the Syrian war began.

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Netanyahu publicly criticized the visit the same day, saying Sharaa “returned inflated with a sense of international legitimacy,” and warning that any U.S.-Syria discussions must “not come at Israel’s expense.”

Additional reporting in the Jerusalem Post and Channel 12 noted that security arrangements affecting Israel’s northern front were discussed in broad terms between U.S. and Syrian officials, though no agreements were reached, and Washington stressed that consultations with Israel were ongoing.

Friday’s clash came the same week the Trump administration launched a sweeping effort to designate Muslim Brotherhood affiliates as terrorist organizations. The White House directive instructs federal agencies to evaluate and sanction Brotherhood entities in countries including Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, citing global financial, political and operational ties among affiliates.

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The White House statement said the Brotherhood “fuels terrorism and destabilization campaigns against U.S. interests and allies.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, praised the move on his podcast Verdict, telling co-host Ben Ferguson that the designation marks the culmination of a decade of legislative efforts. Cruz said “This is literally 10 years of hard work, and it will make America safer because the Muslim Brotherhood is funding terrorists that want to murder you and want to murder me.”

He noted that many U.S. allies in the Middle East — including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE — have already outlawed the organization, telling listeners: “They really want the United States to do what President Trump did this week.”

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As Washington intensifies pressure on Brotherhood-linked movements, Israel is increasingly confronting Brotherhood-affiliated armed groups across the northern arena — from Hamas in Gaza to al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya in Syria and Lebanon.

With Beit Jann emerging as a focal point for cross-border operations, and American policy tightening, analysts say the regional confrontations involving Brotherhood-connected groups may be entering a new phase.

At least 128 people died and 200 remain missing after the towers housing 4,600 people were engulfed by flames.

People in Hong Kong are mourning the deaths of at least 128 people who died in the region’s largest blaze in decades in an eight-apartment residential complex.

The flags outside the central government offices were lowered to half-mast on Saturday as Hong Kong leader John Lee, other officials and civil servants, all dressed in black, gathered to pay their respects to those lost at the Wang Fuk Court estate since the fire on Wednesday.

Condolence books have been set up at 18 points around the former British colony for the public to pay their respects, officials said.

At the site of the residential complex, families and mourners gathered to lay flowers.

By Friday, only 39 of the victims had been identified, leaving families with the morbid task of looking at the photographs of the deceased taken by rescue workers.

The number of victims could still dramatically rise as some 200 people remain missing, with authorities declaring the end of the search for survivors on Friday.

But identification work and search for remains continues, as Lee said the government is setting up a fund with 300 million Hong Kong dollars ($39m) in capital to help the residents.

The local community is also pitching in, with hundreds of volunteers mobilising to help the victims, including by distributing food and other essential items. Some of China’s biggest companies have pledged donations as well.

The Wang Fuk Court fire marks Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948, when 176 people died in a warehouse blaze.

At least 11 people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy, according to local authorities.

They include two directors and an engineering consultant of the firm identified by the government as doing maintenance on the towers for more than a year, who are accused of manslaughter for using unsafe materials.

The towers, located in the northern district of Tai Po, were undergoing renovations, with the highly flammable bamboo scaffolding and green mesh used to cover the building believed to be a major facilitator of the quick spread of the blaze.

Most of the victims were found in two towers in the complex, with seven of the eight towers suffering extensive damage, including from flammable foam boards used by the maintenance company to seal and protect windows.

The deadly incident has prompted comparisons with the blaze at the Grenfell Tower in London that killed 72 people in 2017, with the fire blamed on flammable cladding on the tower’s exterior, as well as on failings by the government and the construction industry.

“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong,” the Grenfell United survivors’ group said in a short statement on social media.

“To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.”