Last minute holidays.. Experiences & Tips Welcome

Naaktgeboren

Due to our youngest's hospital appointments, we are only now in a position to commit to a summer holiday this year.  Late, yes although even now, the usual suspects still have availability.  What I'm wondering though is how the prices are likely to change, the closer we get?

I understand that the uncertainty of Brexit is putting people off right now and that the operators are worried about being out of pocket.. This should mean that there are deals to be had.

How late can you leave it to see the best deals?

Would appreciate any tips

Delvey

A number of factors come into play. Are you limited by certain dates? For example Saturday to Saturday or can you go Wednesday to Wednesday?
Are you limited by airports? London airports seem to be the cheapest.
School Holidays? Likely to be expensive.
A quick look on TUI shows that if you want to leave on Thursday, you can get a week half board in Bulgria for £179, or All Inclusive for under £300.
Funnily enough, they are advertising the TUI Family Life Flamingo Beach in Lanzarote for £320 if you want to leave today.

The best deal I have received late was to the Dominican Republic. We were supposed to fly to Cuba, but on the day we were leaving Hurricane Ike hit. We went to the airport the following day and was told to contact the travel agent. We ended up paying £1100 for 2 weeks all inclusive, in Thomas Cooks premium seating, to the Dominican Republic. We had been refunded £2000 from the Cuba holiday.

I think if you are not fussy with your departure airport, and where you are travelling too, good deals can be had

gg13533

Good advice from Delvey. My understanding is that 6 weeks before is the optimum in terms of pricing apart from very last minute which obviously means little choice in terms of destination, flight times etc. Also very last minute often means extra charges eg for transfers that are normally included and things like airport parking will be dearer. Also keep an eye out for cash back deals

MelissaBuckley

I also agree that planning weeks before your target date is really important to give you more time to adjust and finalise your plans. When we went to Yorkshire last year, we planned everything two months prior our trip, from booking an accommodation through this holiday cottages North Yorkshire provider, securing our leaves from work, and setting our overall budget. This way, we’re able to avoid annoying extra costs that may arise on the way. So if you can have another tentative date for your trip, that would be better.

reiteration

we've booked 2 holidays (next week, and October) and both all inclusives…

next weeks (via tui) we saw the price fluxuate from the 720 each we paid (still over 300 quid saving) where last Wednesday it dropped to 666, then by the Saturday it rose to 776 - then sold out (we assume it was the actual flight rather than the hotel, but haven't checked)..

hotel prices tend to go down closer to the desired date, whereas flights tend to go up, but if you're flexible it helps (from our airport we don't have that many options really) - we didn't want to drive to a different city in this instance...

but at times we're happy to do B&B if we're going to be exploring the place so will book up a flight ASAP and look book later on a place to stay