Get a Great Holiday Deal
So much hype has come to surround the marketing of late breaks and last-minute holidays that you could be forgiven for believing that there's no point in booking your holiday until a couple of days before your departure.
But then, one of the best features of a holiday, which can help make it all the more memorable, is the length of time you've had to prepare and begin to anticipate it.
Rather like shopping for any product or service for which demand is seasonal, the best time to buy a holiday is often as far out of that season as possible. There are also other bonuses to reserving your holiday places early, including:
- Giving you time to save up for the holiday
- Affording you the time to thoroughly research where you're going, and come up with a list of essential things you want to do and see, and
- Having certainty over exactly where you'll be staying, and how and when you'll be travelling.
However, if you're able to go away at short notice, and want to go down the last-minute holidays route, there are several key facts to bear in mind. Package tour operators are like wholesalers – they buy their products in bulk, so have already paid up-front for the holiday you'll take with them.
A couple of months before the departure date, the pressure grows to fill all the spaces allocated on particular holidays, and this is when good discounts are often offered, as the operator has to ensure that it has sufficient money to cover its commitments and make its profit on top.
When it comes to flights, the situation often operates in reverse. Because those who most often book late are business travellers, airlines consider that they can afford to pay more for their tickets. Therefore, the cheapest tickets go on sale as soon as bookings open, and as the airline gets an idea of how many of these it has sold, it will increase the prices of tickets released subsequently, so that it can cover its costs.
Hotels operate on a similar basis. Each night, they will have a certain number of rooms which they know they have to fill in order to cover their operating costs with the required profit margin on top. So there is no guarantee that leaving it until the last minute will secure a bargain room.
That said, many people vouch for the success of the tactic of simply turning up at the hotel reception on the night they want to stay, and simply bargaining hard with the management. But the success of that tactic depends on how full the hotel is, whether it has the staff to be able to cope with extra guests, and finally, how charitable the hotel management is feeling.
The internet has certainly widened awareness of where and how to get the best holiday deals, but often those who have the best cards in their hands are those who, whatever time they are travelling, can be flexible, and are prepared to be realistic about what to expect for their money.
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