Foreign Perspectives

People have a whole range of different ways that they approach booking their holiday of course and this year I think we’ve run through all of them!

There are those who book everything months in advance and don’t allow for any changes in their plans. They certainly get more choice in their accommodation and transport options doing this and sometimes they even get better prices (almost always on discount flights of course). However, the downside is that some of those offers can work out quite expensive if you change your plans eg if you’ve booked a non-refundable rate to get a discount and your plans change. We’ve just had a family whose plans changed and that early booking cost them dear as they’d to make last minute changes of their flights (always expensive) and look certain to have lost hundreds of euros on the accommodation too.

Then there are those that get the urge to go on holiday and book things piecemeal not too much in advance of their trip. This can be quite expensive as the flights are almost always more expensive than the first groups prices. Sometimes the accommodation is more expensive too as hotels are increasingly following the discount airline pricing model ie last minute rooms are more expensive than those you book well in advance. The biggest problem though is that many of these people end up booking across holiday periods when availability of accommodation and transport is less than ideal. For example, we have a couple now who couldn’t book a straight week with us as a couple of days crossed a major holiday so they booked somewhere else to fill the gap. Neither did they book a car in advance as, because of that holiday, there wasn’t any online availability so they’re at the airport at the moment trying to get a car.

Finally, there is the last minute group. Well, actually two groups. One tries to book about a week in advance and that’s usually fine except at the peak of the peak season but sometimes it isn’t. However, at the peak of the peak there’s also a peak of last minute cancellations so if you call a week in advance and find nothing available, calling a day or two in advance can often find some rooms available.