Book Early or Book Late?

The question of whether to book your holiday early or book late is one we get asked every day. I thought it worth spending 5 minutes explaining it from the point of view of a travel professional.

Last Minute Bargain Holidays
It use to be the case that the closer it go to departure, the cheaper it got. In fact wait until the day before and we were nearly giving holidays away in desperation to fill seats and beds.

However holiday companies have realised that this is not good business. Since the credit crunch took effect, tour operators have slashed the number of beds they hold in stock, airlines have reduced the number of flights and overall availability has actually been reduced.

This means that holiday companies have less stock to sell. With less availability it means they can be more confident that you will not have lots of choice if you leave it to the last minute, therefore they can keep their prices high.

They also want to know exactly much money they are going to make so it's in their interest to get you to book early. They want to fill their seats and beds as quickly as possible. Therefore they will give you more incentives to book early.

Holiday companies will know how many holidays they need to sell to make a profit. Once they reach this magic number, ever holiday they sell after this is just profit. Therefore there isn't the same incentive or them to sell things cheap in order to recover costs.

In general you will always find it is better to book holidays in advance. The best holiday deals are to be found up to 11 months before you travel. Some operators now have a limited range of holidays available over 12 months before departure.