There are two essential truths to travel. One: We all want to take a vacation. Two: We all want to get the best deal possible. Travelers will try any trick in the book to try to get a low hotel rate, a cheap flight or a discounted car rental, but one of the eternal questions they face is whether to wait until the last minute or book everything as far in advance as possible.
Your belief in one method or the other largely depends on what kind of success you’ve had with it. Some people swear you’ll get the most rock-bottom prices by booking right before you need (or want) to go. Others insist that waiting until the last minute doesn’t make much difference, and that you can find even better deals by booking in advance.
But who’s right in the wait debate? There is no hard and fast answer. There are simply too many variables in each trip for anyone to be able to guarantee the best results with their preferred way of doing things.
For example, with popular destinations that have an overflowing supply of hotel rooms, you almost can’t go wrong. Hoteliers want their rooms filled, and airlines would rather fly a full plane, so competition for customers can drive prices down. For instance, because of the proximity to one of America’s longest-loved tourism destinations, Niagara Falls hotels often come at great prices. Naturally, you’ll pay a little more to be close to the falls, no matter when you’re booking.
Timing is another factor. Whereas you might find even deeper discounts on Niagara Falls hotels in the frozen winter, it’s likely that Reno hotels would have lower prices in the heat. Low season and high season will naturally vary by destination, and that can have a lot more effect on prices than booking early or late.
Since flights can be the most costly part of your trip, bargain hunting is a must. Again, you need to take into account where you’re going and when. Flights to lower volume airports like Huntsville, Ala. might cost you more, while economies of scale kick in — in your favor — for flights to Toronto, where the Pearson International Airport is Canada’s busiest, seeing more than 30 million passengers a year.
If you’re traveling during the holidays, you might have to adjust your priorities. While you want to get the best deal, simply getting a place on the high-demand flights is most important. Alternately, if you’re traveling during the low season, it might be possible to snatch up a last-minute deal. You can also get a little help from travel websites like Travelocity.com that allow you to set up fare alerts and track ticket price trends.
Rather than picking a ticket-buying or hotel-booking philosophy and sticking with it, you should think analytically about where you’re going and when in order to decide when you buy.
