It’s a month away from school summer holidays and you still haven’t booked a getaway? You’re not alone and you’re definitely not too late.
While there’s a lot of emphasis on finding holiday deals during the January sales, you can find just as good (or sometimes even better) savings if you book at the last minute.
Last week easyJet Holidays Commercial and Development Director Tony Hopkins said people were increasingly leaving late: “We are definitely seeing later booking patterns. “There is high demand, but it is late,” he said.
“Especially this year, people are looking for promotions, but it’s not cheap; more than 50 percent of our bookings are four and five stars. They’re not being stingy, but they want to know how much it’s going to cost.”
The question is: How do you find the best deals? Here are eight important tips.
1. Buy someone else’s holiday
Launched in 2018, Transfer Travel (nicknamed the “eBay of holidays”) offers a marketplace where people can buy and sell holidays by effectively renaming existing bookings rather than starting from scratch. The website takes the cut from the transaction and acts as an intermediary to ensure payments are processed securely.
Currently Transfer Travel has deals for two for £1,690 covering three nights in Paris from 1 August (including Olympic tickets to watch football and volleyball): “I’m selling this as my girlfriend and I have split up and we don’t want it to go to waste,” he writes. sales person.
2. Sign up for newsletters specializing in deals
A good, low-effort way to find last-minute travel deals is to sign up for newsletters that specialize in holiday deals. Jack’s Flight Club is a good starting point for cheap flights. The founder writes: “I know not everyone has the time or know-how to research the cheapest flight deals like Bali for £189 or Peru for £212. But hey, I understand.
A recent newsletter stated that round-trip flights to Egypt cost £117, while a return ticket to Mexico costs £426. To get the most out of these deals, you must of course be flexible with the dates and hit the road quickly.
Other late deal newsletters include Holiday Pirates, Cheap Holiday Expert and Holiday Hypermarket; or if you have a reliable tour operator it’s worth signing up to their email list to be the first to receive the best last minute deals.
3. Use a holiday comparison site
Holiday comparison sites scour the internet for live deals and list them with links so users can make their selection. Travel Supermarket and Kayak are the leaders in this world. Expedia also has a last-minute package holiday page that you can benefit from if you become a free member for reservations made before July 14.
There are also Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) that specialize in hotel and flight deals; Perhaps the most famous of these is lastmonth.com. According to a study by consumer watchdog, Which?, Travel Zoo and Secret Escapes are among the most reliable sites for holiday deals. But be aware that some OTAs offer strikingly low prices only to charge excessively for add-ons, name changes, or calls to customer service lines.
In general, it is worth focusing on the price itself rather than savings. Holidays are priced dynamically, so claims of greatly reduced holiday prices should be treated with caution.
4. Check out traditional tour operators
All traditional package holiday tour operators have late agreements. From where? They book airplane seats and beds in bulk in advance, so they have to sell them at some point. On Tui’s latest deals page you’ll find discounts, as well as last-minute offers from Jet2Holidays and easyJet Holidays. BA Holidays also has a last-minute booking page with seven-day flights and a hotel package in Lanzarote from £390 per person.
5. Check what’s included
It’s a great deal to book a week in Majorca for a few bucks when you have to spend hundreds more on car rental, transfers, luggage and other add-ons. Make a checklist of the things you need and tick them off during the booking process, and be sure to check the cost of any essential add-ons before you go on a holiday.
6. Be flexible with dates and destinations
The more flexible you are with times, dates and destinations, the better deals you’ll find. Skyscanner offers an ‘Anywhere’ search option, allowing you to find cheap deals on peak dates (for example, we found return flights from London to Ibiza for £69 during the summer holidays). Similarly, Airbnb has an “I’m Flexible” option that allows you to focus on the type of property you’re looking for (lakefront, with a hot tub, for a large group) rather than the destination.
7. Travel outside the summit (if you can)
You already know this. However, if you’re not tied to school holidays, it’s always worth remembering that you’ll make big savings by booking outside of the peak summer holiday period between late July and late August.
8. Write down family opportunities and call later
If you stick to the school calendar, the second half of August is almost always cheaper than the beginning. From where? It’s probably because people are impatient and want to get away as soon as possible. It could also be that people do not want to go abroad a week before schools start and perhaps want to make the most of the August Bank Holiday weekend in their own land.
“A little patience pays big dividends,” wrote Nick Trend, the Telegraph’s chief culture and consumer expert, in an article earlier this year. “Book for the last week of August (24-31) and you’ll likely save a few hundred pounds.”
To find 25 of the best last-minute summer holidays you can book now Here.