Does booking your holiday early really save you money
By Darren Cronian on Monday, September 1st, 2008

According to the Which? magazine, those of us that book our holiday for 2009 now, could save up to £1,000. I’m not sure because I have heard from readers who booked their holiday in December, for the following summer and were disgruntled that the price went down by £500 early in March.

Does booking your holiday early really save you money

I suspect it depends on much in demand the location and type of holiday that consumer’s book.

At the beginning of the year I remember a work colleague telling me that a two week holiday, for two, in Greece had reduced in price by £600, so it was cheaper for him to cancel his current holiday, loose the deposit, and book this holiday at the reduced price.

Personally, once I have booked my holiday, that’s it, I never re-check the price, because you can bet that it’ll have reduced in price and I will be gutted that I didn’t wait to book it. The only advantage I can see in booking your holiday early is that you can usually pick up a few free child places.

I think if you are prepared to wait and are flexible on the destination and dates then you can find some good savings. If you have a destination in mind, then it’s advantageous to book early to make sure that there is availability, but I do not think this will mean your holiday will be considerably cheaper.

Let me know what you think – are they offers to be found if you book early?


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4 responses to “Does booking your holiday early really save you money”

Murray Harrold | 1 September, 2008 at 11:40 pm

In all my 25-odd years in travel I have never known the right answer to this vexed question. There is a rule of thumb which people may find helpful. It is this: “If you have a family, and you want to go to a specific place and have to go at a specific time, do it is early as possible.

If there are only one or two of you, you are not too fussed about where you go and are not time constrained, do it as late as possible” Logic: Times such as Christmas (being super-time specific) get booked up 11 months prior, so do things like trips to lapland. For the time specific, half term holidays are early booking jobs, too.

It is not here, a question of price, it is a question of getting availability. In the summer season you can pick up the left-overs at a reasonable price as long as you are flexible. The days of the super cheap holidays, though are past as operators, instead of dumping holidays, simply reduce capacity (much to the chargin of some hoteliers).

Above all remember this – in travel, as in anything else, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. Beware especially, people like Easyjet umping cheap Summer flights to places like Barcelona – there is invaraibly a logic, specifically in that case that they know the hotels are either full or ruddy expensive and the airline has overcooked their seat availability.

Always look deeper into “special offers” of only one element of a holiday. Oh! And watch out for corkers – I will never forget one Lady who was determined to book a cheap beach holiday to Dubai in August – I just could not get it across to her that in Dubai in August she would not be going anywhere near a beach (well not for more than, say five minutes and even then fully clothed, with hat and good thick shoes)

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Nick | 2 September, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Darren

2 points to saving money by booking early.

1. Is your booking on scheduled airline (BA, Virgin, easyjet etc) Then 90% of the time earlier you book better the price.

2 Is your holiday with a company that offers a price guarantee, Thomson was famous for doing this and reinvoced customers if there holiday went down after they booked.

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Pete Meyers | 2 September, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Hi Darren,

Several meta-search websites have developed technology to try and crack this nut, primarily within the airfare sector. Farecast.com (now part of Microsoft…I think) might be the best known, and they show future fare predictions and offer fancy schmancy charts and arrows to indicate whether it’s best to buy now or wait. They’re primarily focused on the US and Canadian markets, but gradually rolling out in Europe.

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Craig | 7 September, 2008 at 10:01 am

I booked a flight to Cape Town 3 years ago for £800, the month before my then girlfriend booked a flight for £450!

The difference of one month in that instance made a huge difference!!

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