I am wondering how far ahead I should make our flight, car rental and lodging reservations.
We will be travelling with our two daughters (22 and 18). I prefer to have our systems in place prior to travel.
Are we looking at making our plans at least 8 months ahead of time or more?
Many thanks ....
Do you always plan everything much in advance is the question? Is that your way? Everyone has their way ;)
Well, there is no perfect amount of time. I think it depends on what you feel confortable with. And also how picky you are....if you have a strict budget, etc. You obviously like to plan ahead so I would guess 3-6months before or something like that. If you know the dates for your trip, you could ''pin'' flights on kayak.com or set up some email alert for pricing I guess. Find out the average cost to Ireland to where you are flying to....when it get close to an amount you feel is right....Book I'd say.
I tend to book everything a month before, maybe 2 at best. But I would never plan a trip 2 years ahead.
Ireland is beautiful...and people are so, so friendly like I had heard...Loved it. Enjoy your planning & trip there!!
This is more to Val. I posted an article from the NY Times travel section that people find more happiness in planning their vacation than the actual vacation. I think another poster forwarded that article to the general Europe section.
Depending on one's work schedule/life, one might have to plan months in advance. Everyone has his/her individual needs. The nature of my work is such that almost everything is planned a year in advance. So, I have to plan my travels well ahead. Just a month or two would not do for me.
For example, I'm planning my trip to Japan four years in advance! Mainly, I want to learn some Japanese before I go. Japanese is incredibly difficult for an English speaker. There are no cognates. There are four writing systems.
For our trip to Australia, I bought our tickets 11 months in advance, so soon as the tickets were available. We wanted the exit row seats for extra leg room and there were only four exit row seats on that particular aircraft.
ihcal, if you do buy your plane tickets and make hotel reservations in advance, read the fine print on refunds, cancellations, fees for changes, etc.
I buy travel insurance to cover some of the cost just in case something happens at the last minute. The Forrest Gump school of philosophy.
*Back to ihcal, what feels comfortable to you. Have you travelled before? If you want to do it 8 months ahead that is fine. Do what you feel is right for you like I have said before. My opening paragraph was meant to tell you that you should do it your way. Perhaps it confused chun. No one knows for sure when the best price will be available. I suggested 3-6months since it is a popular time frame I guess. If you feel like your dates will not change, and your family is fine with planning 8 months ahead, great! I just always Wonder when planning 2 years ahead...what if something changed. A daughter has a serious relationship or moves or, etc.
You may have to not peak and look if the flights prices went down or something like that if you plan early though ;)
It is possible to get good prices in advance...and few weeks before. Have a great time planning and going to Ireland.
p.s. @chun I do not get why you are addressing your message to me about planning.This thread is about helping ihcal. And I tried to do it even if I have different preferences when it comes to planning. I think I am open minded and fully understand ihcal may want or need to plan ahead like you, or others. I made a suggestion a bit shorter than her initial estimate.
For your information, it is possible for me to re-learn a language months ahead, do lots of research months before, but I can book my flights/hotels, etc at the last minute if it works for me. There is such a thing as planning but booking not so much in advance.
Everyone does it differently and you should and they should do as they wish of course. It is often costly to changes flights for e.g. so I prefer to book not in advance. I do find great happiness in researching and do so almost daily. Perhaps have a Europe love that is too strong. haha
Bon voyage!!!
Am confused, do you mean this coming June, 2015 or do you really mean June, 2016?
One thing to be cautious of if booking too far ahead:
For our first trip to Ireland, we thought we were really smart booking the B&Bs for our April trip the previous November. Problem was, in the changeover in books between one year and the next, TWO of our B&Bs lost our reservations. We did not discover this until we were there, and even though we had printed confirmations with us it did us no good - the rooms were not available. If you are going to book early make sure you verify and verify again before you go.
