Tips & advices

Due to the fact that travel agents can rarely sell all their services, just prior to departure many of them are sold with discounts.

These discounts vary, but they can reach 75 % of the original price.

We bring you tips, advices on how to hunt for the hottest last minute travel deals by taking a look at when is the best time to book and techniques you can use to obtain the good services...

When to search for last minute deals?

You will notice 2 major periods that are highly intense:

Summer end season period:

Less people travel at the end of summer, but the travel agents still offer services for sale and are trying to obtain profit.

Because the demand drops, yet the quality of the services is similar, it's a good time for you to hunt for discounts on travel services!

At the end of summer, especially in August and at the beginning of autumn (first half of September, especially) is a good time to find affordable vacation packages, discounted hotel rates and airline tickets, of course.

Pre-winter holiday period:

This is just 1-2 weeks before Christmas and New Year. It's when the demand suddenly drops. People who wanted to obtain services for this period have already booked in advance, but the travel agents still remain with a substantial amount of unsold services, such as unsold airline seats. So, in order to attract clients, they make price cuts.

It's a good time to book for last minute New Year's travel packages and very cheap airline tickets. Flights are the most discounted in this period.

Post winter holiday discounts:

After New Year's Day, very few people travel. It's the biggest crash in the travel industry. And, many of those few people who travel actually are returning home after a New Year's holiday. This meaning that they already purchased the service (not bought it then, but before the holidays), they are only returning home.

After January 3rd, 4th, even less people travel. During January, few people will travel and therefore many last minute discounts are made.

Flights

If a plane with 100 seats takes off with less than 65-75 % of the seats occupied, then the airlines end up in loss. The profitability limit is somewhere around 65-75, rarely 85 %.

Airlines shrink fares in order to get above the profitability limit, so that they don't end up in loss, but they also cut prices if the profit is minimal, in order to increase it, even with a smaller amount.

Therefore, the biggest last minute discounts are on airline tickets. Their price can drop from 1.000 $ to 300 $ pretty often.

Usually long distance flights get bigger price reductions, the percentage of price drop in the case of domestic ones is smaller.

In the last minute, you might be able to obtain a discount package that also includes hotel service. Sometimes the 2 booked together in such a package cost less than if you'd buy the airline ticket.

Travel agencies and airlines alike have last minute flight deals. Agencies buy the tickets before and sell them fast prior to take off. You can obtain tickets at a very low price from either buying form an airline or an agency. Explore the offers of both categories, compare them and make the right decision.

Accommodation

Mostly in the form of hotels or vacation home rentals, these services are among the least discounted ones among all travel services. Nor hotels, nor travel agencies have much interest in reducing the prices of accommodation services. In vacation periods usually most of them get sold and, in case many unrented rooms remain, the agencies won't hurry too much to sell them.

You can find though, discounted hotel services in packages. Actually, when the last minute price cuts do happen, the most common way to do it is by selling the reservation service together with something else. For example: flight + hotel, car + hotel...

Car Rentals

Last minute discounts on rental cars are scarce. These services are anyway relatively cheap, so the agents don't find it important to attract clients by cutting prices. It happens though, but rarely.

You can rent a car for several dozen dollars in general.

For travel agents, the risk of financial loss is the lowest in the case of these services: if they couldn't find clients to rent their vehicles to, then the worst thing that can happen is for the vehicles to "sit and wait" until the first clients come and pay. In the case of airline flights, hotels and cruises, you can imagine that the losses are substantial...

Car rentals are the least discounted travel services. Also, because they already are quite affordable. The cheapest services, that is. But, there are a few companies that do offer discounts in the last minute, among them Expedia and Priceline.

You won't save much, but will spend a lot of time & effort in your search for the advantageous deals. Car rentals too, just like hotels, are better booked in a package.

Cruises

These services are very popular in the USA, Canada, the UK and Northwestern Europe. More rare in the rest of the World. But if you live in other countries, let's say Russia or Hungary, for example, you can still take a cruise by booking at an intermediate agency in your country, which will arrange your transportation to and from the departure and arrival ports.

Discounts on cruises on the last minute are not always major price cuts. You might see big price reduction when a very large amount of rooms remained unsold, then the price could drop even with 50 %, but more often you will see 25-30 % price cuts.

In many cases, there are no price cuts at all. If only a small amount (let's say 10 %) of the places weren't sold, the agency or the cruise line is not going to risk destroying the demand by cutting prices, because when the next season/period starts, the demand will be for a much lower prices and possibly even fewer places will be sold.

The best time to book for last minute cruises is in the first 2 weeks of every month. After that, it'll be harder, usually, but during summer and spring the offers might be richer than in autumn and winter.

Also not that in the case of cruises, the best cabins are often sold out when the last minute offers are launched. Reserving in time will get you a suite, but on late booking offers, most cabins are simple, often even interior ones without ocean view. Though, sometimes you might get lucky and find a well discounted suite with ocean view.

Travel packages

There are the following categories: all inclusive vacations, flight & car rental, flight & accommodation, car rental & accommodation. Some agencies might give them other names, such as "fly & drive" in the case of flight & car rental packages. Many agencies will call them "vacations" or "holiday packages", often simply "packages", which might confuse you, because these are not necessarily all inclusive.

All inclusive packages contain all necessary services. Others are rather partial packages with only several highly important services included.

Sold together in the last minute, these services are cheaper than booked separately in advance.