How far in advance should I book my July trip during unpredictable COVID times?

Those are some tough choices. You may want to look at the current airline policies in terms of change policies. They may not be willing to refund a ticket, but some airline policies enable you to change a ticket if necessary. You can make reservations that don’t require deposits for hotels.

If you are considering July, I would not put this off much longer.

Most plane tickets are "changable" either free or for some sort of fee. Turkish Air is free.

That aside, I would purchase your plane tickets within the next 30 days. Well, its what I would, I will, do for my late June/July trip.

I have tickets I need to buy for July-Aug and for a couple of months I have just been watching them get higher and higher. While it’s possible there will be a sale, you might consider that the difference in price for refundable (or just changeable) might not be much. Read all cancellation policies carefully. If you can’t afford to lose deposits, you need to book places that have good cancellation policies. It is unfortunately the gamble and the added cost of travel in these times.

And look at Cancel for Any Reason Trip Insurance

And Mom, I thought you were in Tibet or something?

I was lucky enough to have airline miles to use, so I dodged the risk-vs-cost question on my June 15 outbound flight (have done nothing about the return yet, but should). I booked a bunch of refundable hotels over the last two or three weeks; I usually play things a lot more by ear, but most of my destinations on this trip are high-cost, so it's risky to leave accommodations until the last minute.

My itinerary includes two overnight ferry trips requiring cabins. Those ferries run only once a day and not every day of the week, so I've had to book those (tickets changeable but not refundable, alas).

I am stubbornly holding off on train tickets (despite having two legs with pinned-down dates and times) and two intra-European flights (both uncertain as to date and/or point of origin). Dallying on those transportation links is going to cost me, but perhaps not as much as I'd lose if I had to reschedule the trip after buying the tickets.

It's been decades since my most recent trip to Portugal, but I don't remember reading here about full trains, and I believe Portuguese trains are relatively inexpensive. I'd work on the hotels (refundable rooms) and the flights now.

Don't assume that all airlines have the same refund/change policy. If you have multiple airline options, take the time to go far enough into the purchase process with each one to be able to see the refund/change policy.

My refundable tickets for Portugal in July have gone up 40% since I bought them about a month ago. They weren't cheap to begin with and I wouldn't have bought them at today's prices.

James, I am in Jordan…. Don’t be jealous.

CWSocial, I refuse to cancel my July trip for the third time but you are absolutely right about ticket prices…..(get off the forum and go finish packing! 🤣 I will get off and go float in the Dead Sea.)

acraven, miles are my fallback.

But seriously- traveling last year and this year is not as simple and comes with a few more financial risks and some higher costs (this year - last year was cheap). So sarahlou89, only you can decide. It may be well worth it to buy changeable flights for a few hundred more.

I have booked flights, accommodation and car hire for October and January Spanish trips several months ago.

Travelling in July, the interior of Portugal is unbearable, so I presume you are sticking near to the coast. Yikes. I would be concerned if I hadn’t booked accommodation by now. Demand is almost back to pre pandemic levels.

Thank you for all of your responses! Based on what I have read here I will be booking very soon.

Thanks everyone again for all of your sage advice!