Book early or late

[ragdollabbi]

Wondering what the thoughts are about booking flights early or waiting to nearer departure time

We booked our flights months ago for July (with Jet2) We paid £208 each plus the usual add ons, luggage, seats etc. Same flights are now £134 each. It makes you wonder what the advantages are of booking early as if we had waited until now we could have had another £150 to spend in Puerto Pollensa.

Not a happy bunny this morning

Flights are from Newcastle

 

[smg]

do jet 2 have a 'price promise' like easyjet?

(will sometimes credit difference on identical flights on direct bookings)

 

[ragdollabbi]

do jet 2 have a 'price promise' like easyjet?

(will sometimes credit difference on identical flights on direct bookings)

Not sure about that, but I will certainly look into it. Have just sent them an email complaining about the difference and how there are no incentives for booking early, but I did not mention 'price promise' Will follow it up though

 

[mwc]

We to normally book flights about 8 months before travel with Jet 2 & have only ever seen them go up in price, though this year because of certain circumstances only booked them a couple of month's ago to go next week. Have just checked prices & they are now reduced around £30 each for the 4 of us.

 

[sws97sdg]

We normally book Easyjet flights as early as possible as they nearly always go up, its just supply and demand, when the have an empty flight to fill the flights cost a certain amount, when it is nearly full they charge more, but is it gets near the departure date and they have empty seats the price will drop! The problem is if you leave it too late there may well not be spaces on the flights you want, then again they may have lots and you get a bargain!

 

[joey36]

I think that you have answered your own question.We have had exactly the same happen with our flights with Monarch.So the answer to your question is leave it late if you can.If the airlines continue like this no one will book early and they will have to reduce prices even further.

 

[emmalou]

We also booked months ago with Jet2 for our July flights!! A friend of mine is joining us for part of the holiday and only booked last week with Ryanair, got return flights for July for £86!!!

 

[ragdollabbi]

It's really very frustrating when that happens, especially when it is as much as £74 each. Thank goodness there's not 5 or 6 of us Does anyone know if Jet2 have a 'price promise'? My thoughts are that they will come back to me and say "tough" but one can only try

 

[Grandad]

Not Sure Why

In the last few years most airlines started selling cheap and then increasing the price nearer the flight time but this year certainly for July/August the prices have definately got cheaper. Cannot think that this is because of capacity as every flight I have had this year has been full. Could be people were hoping for a good English summer so didn't book. I have just booked with Monarch to fly out end July (School Holidays) £128 ( no suitcase ) but paid £168 (cheapest i could get) early June (Not school Holidays). ?

 

[CathB]

We always book Easyjet as they are released..i have never found them cheaper at a later date..they can increase quite a bit and then they may have a "sale" but they are still more than the original price.

 

[ragdollabbi]

Cath, I agree with you, Easyjet never seem to go down in price and you are better booking with them as soon as they are released, but around the time that we booked (around the end of January) we thought that we were getting a better deal with Jet2. Imagine how annoyed I was to discover that they became£150 cheaper. I did get a reply from Jet2 just this week apologising but that prices fluctuate according to demand. No such thing now as book early - save money

 

[CathB]

We dont really have much choice here ..its Easyjet or Ryanair from Bristol and only Vueling from Cardiff and as they do not do many direct flights for the dates we want. So EJ it is...still waiting fir April 14 to come out

 

[romanb]

I am going to disagree re;Easyjet we live about ten minutes from Southend airport when the flights for the school holidays were released the flight from Southend that we wanted was extremely high over £200 for one way (my sister even phoned to query)as it was far cheaper on the return. We booked from Gatwick with Monarch as the flight was just over £100 so even factoring in the taxi it still worked out alot cheaper overall. I looked last week and the flight is now £137 so for convenience we would have been much better off taking the Southend flight had we waited until now. I do not know if it was a blip in Easyjets system but in this case the flight has gone down considerably with only four weeks to go.

 

[tangofan]

We booked BA from London City Airport last September for £164 return including 23 kg, hand luggage AND handbag and no debit card fees. This was cheaper than all the budget airlines and Thomson who we usually used. Our sons booked separately later on BA for £85 and £115 one way, returning on Ryanair for £50 as the BA flights were just too dear by then. We flew out last week and the price was around £700 by then!

We did check the price quite often and it didn't go down much to speak of.

The Ryanair flights were booked in March and the price went up and down nearly every day during that period up to as much as £99.00 so it is really difficult to know what to do.

However I will be very happy if I can get BA flights again even if they are a bit dearer as London City and BA is a dream compared with going to Gatwick etc and only took us about 20 minutes to get there. It was so civilised!

 

[ragdollabbi]

Just had another shock this morning when I discover that Easyjet have flights NCL/PMI for the same dates as we are travelling (15th - 25th) for £114 each Can't remember exactly what Easyjet were when I booked Jet2 (and paid £208) but I would guess that they must have been around the same price but we opted for Jet2 for better flight times I certainly would have gone for rubbish times to save almost £100 each. Another morning that I am not a happy bunny Think in future I may wait until last minute before I book flights and hope for the best

 

[whaleywanderer]

I know it's not an option for everybody but we have always found Monarch to be good value, whenever you book. Obviously, like all the other airlines, they disadvantage families with school age children by increasing their flights during the school holidays.

My son just booked a flight with Monarch for July from Manchester and the total, including a bag was £118.

 

[Rosie34]

We always book early (like nearly a year in advance) so that we can secure our accommodation - which gets booked up early! This year we paid about £486 for 2 to Palma with J2. So we have just booked the villa for next year and J2 flights worked out at about £450 and Monarch were £356 including 23kg luggage, extra leg room etc - guess who we chose We are travelling with Monarch for the first time in October this year so hopefully it will be a good experience