Xmas flights - late booking

[timmy]

I intend flying out a Xmas. How late can I leave booking flight tickets. If I try at the end of November will the flights be booked or be ridiculously expensive[?]

[athurstance]

Probably. When we go at Xmas we always book early. Easter is similar. I just spent the weekend finding flights for Easter 2004. There wasn't much left at all let alone at a good price. We did get a good deal but I certainly wouldn't want to leave it to the last minute. Chances are you won't get anything at all.
Last minute is great for non-peak times but Xmas and Easter doesn't usually offer much in the way of bargains.

Angela

[neilandkay]

We had to book last minute flights at Xmas time last year (albeit US to UK). We were looking at the beginning of Dec and were getting quoted silly prices. It took us a lot of searching but found flights at approx 850UKP return. It seemed that the week before Xmas is a popular time to fly and was essentially booked out unless you wanted to pay for Business/Premium class. We ended flying out on the 15th Dec and back on the 3rd Jan.

If your dates are around Xmas/NY I would recommend booking early unless you have the flexibility to work with your flight dates or have lots of money.


--Kay

[blott]

We booked our Christmas 2003 flights in March 2003 and had great problems finding any availability apart from at silly prices (£900+ for economy!). Eventually, we managed to get the last three seats on a flight on 17 December (for £320) although we could have gone from 13 December if there had been seats available. I'm not sure what charter flight availability is like but our flights are scheduled.

I'd therefore reiterate the advice above and get your flights booked as soon as possible, particularly if you're tied to inflexible dates.

[Theresa]

I booked our flights for Xmas 2002 two weeks before we went. Got a good deal albeit charter. If I had left it another few days I could have got it another £50 per person cheaper.

[fiona]

We are having to wait until the A level results are out to book our flights because first choice uni breaks up 10 Dec, second choice 19th!!

And we have 2 free flights from BA which have to be taken by 13 Dec. No pressure on ED to come up with the grades then!!

[Debs]

We booked our Christmas 2002 flights in October - we were really lucky to get a 2 for the price of one deal with AA. There are deals to be had if you keep looking :D

[MTP]

A good way of sussing out the variances in flight prices for dates is to use the BA web site and the Gatwick to Orlando flight. If you put in your preferred dates you can choose +/- 14 days and this will then bring up a grid of the month around your flight dates.


Even if you don't choose BA to fly with it will give a good indication as to which days are more expensive, some times one days difference can make a huge financial difference. Another thing that I found when booking flights recently was that by using American Airlines web site I could get exactly the same routing as BA's web site (INV-LGW-MCO), but for about £200 cheaper for two adults and two kids! The only problem is that you had to pay in full at time of booking. Speaking to a travel agent friend she was saying that BA, though, are also insisting on full payment at time of booking for some of their fares at the moment - I guess that will be helping them make the profit they just have!

Best wishes,

Euan