Now's the time to book your winter vacation
[Dreaming of a beach vacation for when the snow and ice hit? Now’s the time to book it. (House Beautiful)]
If you’re thinking of going on a trip this holiday season, now is the time to book.
The last chance to get in on early booking bonuses for many tours, group excursions, cruises, charter flights and all-inclusive vacations is generally either before the end of September or the end of October depending on the tour group you’re dealing with.
“When to book really is a hard question because it really depends on where you’re going and when. If it’s somewhere like South Africa you need to book it seven or eight months in advance. For the Caribbean, the early booking bonuses all expire at the end of October and they usually save you $250 if you book before then,” says Anne Barclay, owner and senior travel advisor at Wanderlust Travel in Oakville, Ont.
Match Game
However, if you do get in on the early booking bonus, there’s one more thing you should be aware of. In the event that your vacation package doesn’t sell as well as hoped, the tour operator or resort may lower the price even further closer to departure to get more business.
“The thing is, when you buy an all-inclusive it’s not refundable and you can’t change, so we’ve had it happen where we’ve booked somebody and a week later the price drops. Well, it’s too bad, there’s nothing that can be done,” says Barclay.
This year however, some tour operators have been offering price protection where they will match the price one time. This means if the price of your trip was $2,000 with the early booking bonus, but then dropped to $1,500 six weeks before departure, they would refund you the $500. However, there are other rules and restrictions to price matching you should be aware of.
“To get the price match, typically you have to report the lower price more than 30 days before departure. If it’s within 30 days, they won’t give you the break. Read the fine print.” says Barclay.
Her advice would be book your vacation as early as you can to see if you can get in on an early booking bonus and find out if there’s a price protection so you can get that one-time price match.
Group Think
With the Farmer’s Almanac predicting a harsh winter in 2017, demand is certainly higher than it was last year among travel agencies.
“It looks like it’s going to be a rougher winter and the bookings so far for the winter season are ahead of last year. Last year was not the greatest winter, so that has created a pent-up demand and urgency for people wanting to get booked,” says Flemming Friisdahl, president and founder of The Travel Agent Next Door in Toronto. With so much competition, Friisdahl says the best time to book very much depends on the type of traveler you are.
“If you are a group, such as a wedding or something like that, and you want to get what you want, you better book early. In other words, if you want the specific hotel with the specific room or the specific patio for having dinner or your wedding on, you need to book up to a year in advance,” he says.
Families can also take advantage of group rates, especially during peak times like the winter holidays as long as they are willing to book early, such as in March or April.
“If you’re booking a family of eight for example, you can book with some tour operators and get group rates that come with a drop guarantee, so if you book up to 30 days before departure you can get the lower price. It’s very much to your advantage to book earlier and not wait because the longer you wait, the more the price may go up,” says Friisdahl.
Most Canadians book their vacations through charter flights, while in the U.S. most vacations are booked through traditional airline carriers. Many of the Canadian charters like Sunwing, Sunquest, Air Canada Vacations, WestJet Vacations or Air Transat have special deals and incentives for multi-generational family travel.
“The incentives can be anything from kids go free, Aeroplan points or a ‘book now, get a lower price later’ guarantee. Why would you not book now, if you know you’re going to get a lower price later?” asks Friisdahl. “Groups are becoming a huge thing in Canada.”
Last Minute Madness
Other vacationers are flexible about the dates they travel and don’t really care about the destination; they just want to go away.
“These people are all about price,” says Friisdahl. “If you book off-season in January or April, you’re going to get some very attractive pricing, but you won’t get the pick of the litter and have to take what you can get.”
For example, Barclay managed to find a chartered vacation package deal to Cuba that hadn’t sold very well. Snagged just five days before departure during the peak Christmas season, it was an all-inclusive resort that offered seven nights accommodation, a roundtrip flight, plus meals and drinks for $500 per person.
“We don’t usually do last minute deals because the hotels aren’t very good and the food is usually mediocre, but this one was actually cheaper than staying home,” she says.
But vacation time is precious — some of us only get two weeks a year, if we’re lucky — which is why you may have to ask yourself: do you really want to spend those precious days in the wrong hotel because that was all that was available?
“Obviously everybody is conscious about money, but you really want to look at your lifestyle at home before you book a vacation and find a style of trip that will match it. Otherwise, you just won’t enjoy yourself and the money you saved won’t really be worth it. It’s not about going to a five-star hotel, but you want to make sure you’re actually going to enjoy the time,” says Friisdahl.