To be furious about these prices

Looks to me like there are some reasonable flights to and from Athens that week. Connections to Corfu with Aegean are just under 40€ then. This is the route we’ve done most often as it’s super easy with kids. (Lots for kids in Athens and really easy metro system from airport - 40 mins direct to centre).

The trick with Corfu (and some other Greek islands) is to short break/city break somewhere else and then connect). This way you can save a fortune on flights and see some new places as a family. You only normally need to do it one way depending on whether the outbound or return flights are expensive.

Naples, Milan, Venice , Thessaloniki, Athens are good options and there are sometime good deals if you route via German cities.

Corfu is a popular Italian destination and their school holidays are different to ours. This means you can get flights for ridiculous prices if you time it for when they are flying empty planes out to bring back families or vice versa. We once got £30 flights to Naples and 10€ to Corfu last week of August. Done this route a couple of times and its great to do two days doing Vesuvius/Pompei etc then onwards to Greece.

It's because it's Sat-Sat of May half term, those very specific days are up there with the very most in demand of the entire year. For lots of routes to European sunshine airports they will be the highest price tickets of the year, it's just how it is.

We are going long haul and extra internal flights whilst there for less - I'm not paying the inflated prices for Europe at Easter or May half term, but you have a wedding invite so can't change the destination, is just what it is.

@Turophilic
Not much help when attending wedding!
That is true. I could respond in true MN style that is also not helpful that is usually trotted out when it comes to destination weddings, 'It is an invitation not a summons!'

However my suggestion was general and not particularly OP specific and it could help other people who are conscious of flight prices. There are some great prices and gems to be found for places that are off the beaten track for UK tourists.

I guess you have already tried OP but have you put in 'whole month' in your search and considered doing something like a Wednesday out, Monday return or similar depending which days are the cheapest to depart and return. I am aware some places only fly out or in on certain days of the week but many places have lots of flights, I don't know about Cypress though.
It is frustrating though.

Not much help when attending wedding!

You cut your clith to suit what you can afford.
Also look for alternatives or less popular destinations. There are plenty of less popular European places that are warm/ hot in the summer, have beaches and loads of things for children to fo.
Get off the beaten track and explore.

This. It's the person who decided to have a wedding that would involve guests flying at the most expensive time of year you need to be mad at.

It's just like peak and off peak trains.

See it as lower prices when there's less demand to encourage people to go then. It's fine.

I wouldn't start with package holiday businesses in school holidays. Look at individual flights, airbnb, holiday cottages, different destinations.

Also the May bank holiday was always THE most popular time of year for people to book holidays to go abroad. I used to work in the industry. All of our package holidays would sell out for that date, always. This was a long time ago but I imagine it hasn’t changed much.

It’s called dynamic pricing.
It is how most business operate.
Have you never come across this before?
Example: you go out for lunch. The price is X for Sunday and bank holidays. Y for Thursday, Friday & Saturdays. Z for the other, less popular days.
Hoilday companies are not charities.
Another example taxi prices.
Surely everybody knows that price for peak times, which includes school holidays, are more expensive.
Heres the thing. If the prices were the same all year round then the demand for those dates would be even higher. How would you feel if people without school aged children booked to go then? I bet you’d be moaning that they could go at anytime so why are they taking up these valuable places.

It may have been cheaper to have booked a package holiday and then not used the accommodation.

In that case it's your relative you need to be 'furious' with if it's their choice of wedding date and venue that's causing you to be pricing up those flights.

If they're dim enough to plan an abroad wedding in a popular holiday location in the school holidays at relatively short notice then they can't expect attendance if you're not so wealthy to be able to absorb the cost without thought.

But as jet2 are selling packages where you could take the entire family from around £2k, less if you don't go for the full week, have you looked into that option on their website?

Do you mean just the flight or an actual full holiday with Jet2? As my costings with them are coming out much cheaper than this?

I don't take holidays when school is out, so I am not rushing for the best prices in those weeks anymore. Not a teacher, or a parent, and very happy to leave everyone who needs those weeks to get their preferred dates.I am very happy to travel in the off seasons and quieter periods.

Why the eye roll? Your post was nonsense.

🙄

Surely people know that holidays are more expensive during school holidays before they have children?

And as stated, there are only so many holidays. Even if the prices were artificially levelled out, not everyone who wanted to would be able to holiday during the six weeks.

I assume this is a sarcasm. Owing to the amount of other daft comments on here, I'm having some doubts now!

Oh I would love to be around MN when this happens!

‘It’s capitalism’, ‘it’s demand’ - they could just run an extra flight couldn’t they, if the demand is so high.

Of course they could! They could just magic up another plane, and another couple of pilots and flight crew, and magically create some take off and landing slots at airports and inrease capacity in the hotels!

Oh wait...

But if you book when they come out they are a lot cheaper, so some forward planning would make it less costly.