You are here: Home > Travel & Holiday Hints > Grab yourself a last minute holiday bargain Print this page

Grab yourself a last minute holiday bargain

Escape for less

What is last minute?
Why is it cheaper?
Where can I find the best prices?
Be flexible
Getting an even better price
Other holiday options
What's the catch?

There's so much hype about getting last-minute holiday deals, but are there real savings to be had? Or is it just a ploy to get you to spend your money? The answer is a bit of both. You can get great deals last minute but you've got to be able to make quick decisions and be flexible.

If you've got your suitcases packed and are ready to escape for a week or two, here are our top tips on getting a last-minute deal.

What does last minute constitute?

Don't be fooled. A last-minute holiday doesn't actually have to be booked last minute. In fact, prices for package holidays start to drop around two months before the departure date.This means that from two months before you want to go away you can start looking for deals.

Saying this, the cheapest deals are up for grabs from two weeks before the departure date.This is when the travel agents start getting desperate to fill places and drop the prices dramatically.

Why can last minute travel be cheaper?

Travel agents buy holiday packages from tour operators in bulk. This means that they have already paid for the holidays that you go on, and your money pays back their investment with profits.

Up to nine months before the departure date you can get a cheaper rate as this helps the travel agent sell lots of holidays in advance, giving them a good idea of how many they have left to sell.

When it gets to two months before the departure date, the holidays that remain unsold are marked down in price to try to fill the planes and hotels and at least make some of the invested money back. The closer to the date of departure, the cheaper the price of the holiday as the greater the need to sell it.

This is not necessarily true of flights. Each flight has a quota of cheap seats and when these have been purchased the next quota is a bit more expensive. So when the cheapest seats have been bought you won't be able to get the cheapest deal, even if you take the flight the day after you book. In fact, with flights, seats get more expensive closer to the departure date.

This is because most last-minute travellers are businessmen or women who need to get to a destination promptly. Their companies will pay the higher price for the seat and so the airline will hike up the price to make up any losses they have from other unsold seats.

Getting a hotel room last minute can be a bit of a gamble. If the hotel has filled enough to cover their overheads for the night you wish to stay, you probably won't get a better deal. This is also true of booking a couple of nights ahead on the internet. If they can get you to pay the full price, they will.

However if you are willing to try your luck by turning up to the hotel on the night you want to stay, you might be able to negotiate a price. But, this depends on lots of different factors; how full the hotel is, how many staff are working, what kind of mood the management is in.

So if you're willing to traipse around a few hotels, and don't mind the fear of being stranded in a foreign country with nowhere to sleep, then have a go - you might get a bargain.

Where do I find the best last minute prices?

The absolute best resource for finding last minute deals is the internet. There are thousands of sites that advertise great deals. A good place to start is Teletext holidays. You can access this holiday service online, by phone or on your television - but online access gives you all the information in front of you in a clearer way.

They have information from lots of different tour operators and travel agents giving you access to the best deals. The cheapest holidays will be in the late deals section. Remember that packages do not let you buy flights and hotels individually.

Lastminute is another good site. Although Lastminute is the original last minute site, it's not necessarily the best. Cheapest deals to be had can be found in their last second deals section.

Other big players are holidayhypermarket, travelsupermarket, cheapholidaydeals and latedeals. All the main travel agencies also have late deals sections on their websites so don't forget to have a look at them.

Be flexible

The key to getting a great last minute deal is flexibility. To get the cheaper deals you have to sacrifice being choosy. So if you've left it to the last minute, you'll invariably end up disappointed if you have a specific destination in mind or exact travel dates.

When you use the online search engines, always click the flexible dates box. This will give you more chance of getting a super-cheap deal. The best prices will be departing mid-week, so try to avoid weekends.

Also if you can avoid the school holidays you can get much cheaper prices. Often Mediterranean destinations remain hot and sunny well into September, so going away later in the year is always an option.

Above all you've got to be realistic. Don't miss out on a great holiday because you are searching for a lower price that doesn't exist. Popular holiday destinations in peak times often sell so well that they are never reduced as last minute deals.

You've also go to be realistic about the reductions available for last minute deals. Although prices can be reduced significantly (in June Teletext holidays was advertising a week in Turkey for £99 in 3* accommodation), you are not going to get 14 nights in a 5* resort in Mauritius for £199, even if you fly the next day.

Getting an even better price

When booking a late deal you've got to remember that you have the power. The travel agent wants to sell their holidays and needs your custom to do so. This means that you can haggle to get a better price. The best way to do this is by following some easy steps:

First phone up Teletext holidays or another similar company that deals with several tour operators and has telephone salespeople. It is essential to phone as you can't haggle on the internet. Get their best deal on the holiday you want and make sure you know exactly what the package includes. They may have to go off and see if they can get you a better price, but they will phone you back.

Then take the price you've just been given and search on the internet and call other agencies to see if you can get a lower price. You can use your first quote as a bargaining tool to ask other agencies to match or beat it.

Then once you've spoken to as many places as possible and got the best price you can, take this back to the original company you spoke to and ask them to beat it. If they can't, you've already got the cheaper quote from the other company and if they can, you can expect to make good savings.

Remember to negotiate a price per person rather than per package. This way, if you are booking for two, you are getting twice as much off as you appear to be getting. You can also speed up the process by shaving some money off the quotes you've got when speaking to other travel agents. Don't go too far, but if you've got a quote for £300, shave it down to £290 so you should get a bit extra off any new price.

Don't expect enormous savings - you can probably expect to get around 15% off at most. But 15% off an already reduced holiday should get you a pretty good price.

Other cheap holiday options

Another way to get a bargain holiday is to bid for one on a holiday auction site, like the one on Late Deals. It works in exactly the same way that eBay works - you sign up, bid on a holiday and if yours is the highest bid when the auction closes, you get it.

You can get some ridiculously cheap deals - at the time this article was written they had offers of £420 for 3 tickets to Majorca staying in a 3* self-catering apartment. That's less than £150 per person in peak season.

The only setback is that these prices do not include the £20 booking fee per ticket. They also don't include transfers or insurance - so you will have to sort these out yourselves. If you've got any queries about holiday insurance, see our article to get yourself the best deal.

You can also pick up travel tickets and holidays on the cheap on Gumtree in the tickets section. They are often fairly last minute and people do try to recoup what they've paid so they don't advertise big reductions. However, it's hard to shift tickets that you've already bought so you can haggle to get better prices.

What's the catch?

If you don't mind where you go and you're flexible with dates then you can get a bargain holiday. However, you're much more likely to get the holiday experience you want if you book early and take advantage of the reductions available in advance.

Although late deals are great, you do have to make sacrifices and if you don't do your research properly you could end up on a nightmare holiday.

Saying that, it is exciting to travel to a place you've never been before. It's also quite exciting not knowing where you're off too until a few days/weeks before you go, so if you don't mind taking risks then this could be a great way to have an impromptu break for less.