I'm away "somewhere", first week in October and won't probably book until very late, hopefully somewhere in Greece, but definately a place where I haven't been yet. I have a few places in mind, but I'm very open about the final destination, which makes life a little easier.

Just hope there are plenty of deals around then, they seem in short supply at the moment, and I fear for the future, as I prefer booking that way, or booking flight only and finding own hotel etc.

Heres hoping,

Robby

booked for august next year - i like to be organised - and also have an excuse to kick hubby out of bed on a saturday morning to go and do some overtime

Because we travel with two children and are limited to the school holidays I always book early. So far I have not lost out and the holiday this year costs far far more now than it did booking last August.

I have booked next years holiday in Cyprus (never been there before) and have got daytime flights and a free child place. Better still I looked at the price online (Eclipse direct) phoned them up got them to give me the same price plus the low cost deposit (£15 pp) with the balance of the deposit to be paid next January. However they clearly stated that if I did cancel I would still have to pay the full deposit. However using this site (which I adore) and other sites I am very satisfied that I will not change my mind.

We usually book our main summer holiday at the beginning of May in the previous year, when the brochures first come out.
This is because we want to holiday in the school holidays and stick to hubbys factory holidays, have day flights from our local airport and choose the hotel that we reallly want to holiday in, plus as we have to pay adult for our teenage son, have a necessary free child place for our youngest.

Following on from my previous post, this will be the first year that we will not be booking the following years holiday, i.e. 2008 in May this year

This is partly to do with our Son's age, who will be seventeen in December and because he is going on a school trip to NASA Florida and Houston, Texas at Easter 2008.

Booked our Easter 2008 holiday back in November 2006 when the brochures first came out, but I'm not sure what we're doing about a July/August '08 holiday yet. My son will be 18 next summer and he''ll be preparing to go to Uni and may even want to go away with friends. My daughter (currently aged 14) is sulking because she doesn't want to go on holidays without having big brother around to annoy and torment for two weeks It would be nice if she could bring a friend on holiday to keep her company but that all depends on whether any of her friends' parents are willing to pay for them to go.
We're off to Fuerte this Easter (30 days and counting) I booked this holiday back in November 2005, got a good price, 3 of us in a spacious 2-bedroomed apartment on all-inclusive for similar to what we'd pay for half board in a cramped hotel room in some places. I checked the price a few times in the months after booking, it went up a bit and then by last Autumn had 'sold out', so I'm pleased we booked when we did.
Did a 'last minute' holiday back in August 2005 - just wanted a quick cheap week anywhere in August, really struggled to come up with anything decent, and certainly no bargains
I suppose there are bargains out there if you can get away during term time, but if you have to take your holidays during school breaks then I would definitely recommend booking early.

I wish I knew what I was going to be doing 12 month in advance.
We have never booked our holidays more than three weeks in advance - that includes christmas and New Year.

We always book a year in advance for availability and free child places during may halfterm. Wish we'd never bothered for this year though. We had originally booked to go to Cyprus, but found out by accident a few weeks ago that our hotel had been closed and all the ground floor and pool area had been demolished for a complete refurbishment. We wern't told this at the time of booking as the hotel had just decided in the September and guaranteed Thomson that it would be finished by 15th May. As we were booked to go 19th, I didn't want to take the chance of it not being finished, been there, done that, wore the dust!!! So we changed holidays and were really lucky to still get a free child place, we got the last one from our airport!!
I don't know if I'm gonna be as quick booking up for next year maybe wait till september or october.....we'll see

we always book 12 months in advance so we plenty of time to pay for our holiday and the more time youve got to wait, the more spending you can save up

nothing in this life is free including child places..if you are not paying inflated prices to cover them then the rest of us are...

i never book more than 4 months in advance, always got the accommodation/resort we wanted and never paid extortionate prices either

nothing in this life is free including child places..if you are not paying inflated prices to cover them then the rest of us are...

That sums it up. An item on the news on Saturday dealt with this. They did research and found in most cases it was cheaper to book the kids as adults and therefore get the discounts.

fwh

Just booked to go to Goa for march 2008 I found a very good deal which takes in Easter so it was a case of book it now before it goes up. I like to get the holidays I want booked in at work so it makes sense for me to book early

Quote:
nothing in this life is free including child places..if you are not paying inflated prices to cover them then the rest of us are...


That sums it up. An item on the news on Saturday dealt with this. They did research and found in most cases it was cheaper to book the kids as adults and therefore get the discounts.

Michelle our travel agent always checks for us to see where we get the bigger discounts and only once was it cheaper paying for him.

we went to tunisia august 06, which was booked sept 05, we had to book 2 seperate rooms for me,hubby and 2 kids as thomson told us the family room would not take my eldest as an adult, the room was for 2 adults and 2 kids.. in june 06 we found out that thomson were doing family rooms that took up to 4 adults and 1 child so went to thomson to see what they could do as the room spec had obviously changed.. they said we could have the family room but they wanted another £800 so we had to make do with 2 rooms. i will never book early again because of this.. and never use thomson

sharon

We booked this years July holiday, in August last year. There are 34 of us going to Mexico, we booked with Portland and paid just under £1,000 each. We are going to Riu Tequila for 14 nights.
Another couple have booked the same holiday, just a couple of weeks ago and have had to fork out £1,305 each.
There is now no availability from Gatwick, and someone else who would like to join us has been quoted £1,404 for the same holiday flying from Cardiff (a long drive away).
So for us in such a large group, there really was no option......plus we got a fantastic price.
Lorraine