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Early bird booking for flights and lodging in Berner Oberland region

Posted by (Maryland) on

Hello all,
I was hoping to glean some wisdom from experienced travelers to the Berner Oberland region on how early to book for a late June/July 2022 trip. My wife and I are trying to redo a trip to that was cancelled due to COVID this past year :(

A quick search for a 3-night stay in Murren in late June 2022 on Expedia, for example, reveals few options and the available ones are way more expensive than I remember. Is this because it's too early and many places haven't opened up those dates?

For flights I'm still thinking about 6-8 months in advance is good. Does that sound right to you?

We'll be doing a mixture of camping and hotel/b&b stays hopefully. Any advice is helpful. Thanks in advance!

-Aaron

Posted by
5604 posts

You will get a better price if you book directly with the property. Just make sure the cancelation policy is clearly defined. Some places give a RS discount.

Hotel Bellevue in Murren is one of these honoring a RS discount. My communication with them has been excellent.

You may be a little TOO early.

Regarding flights- I think price point and the change policy is more important than when you book. You can set up price alerts on Google Flights, and track the trends.

One thing I have learned in the past few weeks: maybe it's best to fly directly from a US airport into the country of your destination. Our Sept trip is being impacted because of our transfer in Heathrow; Italy requires a quarantine just for transferring flights in the UK.

We just discovered that the airlines have been selling seats on planes that have not flown since March 2020; then canceling the flights five weeks out. We discovered Flight Aware to track this.

Good luck and I know you'll get there! Safe travels!

Posted by
39 posts

Well don't I feel like an idiot, haha. Sorry Rick, I'm learning :)

Posted by
5604 posts

You won't feel like an idiot when you receive a 20-25% discount when booking directly with an RS discount !!!

Posted by
8967 posts

You'll drive yourself crazy trying to outguess the airlines computers by hoping to nail the best fare. I dont think its the number of months ahead of time anymore. Its more like there are certain times there will be pop-up sales that last for a few days, and if you're watching regularly, you'll catch one if you're lucky. In the Before Times, I would regularly see good sales on fares (usually on Delta) right around Thanksgiving (end of November). Who knows now? I think it also depends on your departure airport, as some markets are more competitive than others.

But I also believe that a good itinerary (i.e., flight times, connection times, and convenient connection airports) is better than the lowest fare. And also the longer ahead of time you book a flight, the more chances of the airline making changes in your itinerary. So lots of factors.

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