When you are paying for your holidays do you pay like a year in advance, or six weeks before you go ?

[Lardlizard]

We mainly diy
So book flights n hotels separate, which is also handy because I tend to book a year in advance, hence me thinking of this as planning holidays now for next year

Anyway most of the time we diy although we have had the odd package deal if it works out cheaper, as I always check all options

Anyway
Only problem with the package holidays are, you don’t have to pay until about 6 weeks before you go, so then if you do that, there’s less time to save for the next one

Anyway just wonder what others do

I normally pay the deposit and then the whole lot just before the deadline as 0% interest makes no difference.. I only do it this way because if i decide i can't/don't want to go it would be a lot more difficult to get money back if whole lot had been paid

But has if that’s because it’s a package holiday if you cancel at the last min aren’t you contracted to pay anyway ? And what if you wait to pay until 6 weeks before your holiday then after the holiday you want to book for next year but a diy flights n hotel works out cheaper than the package but of of course you have to pay for the flights in full
And often the hotel in fullnin advance
You have less time to save

It might work out cheaper but by booking separately you are not protected by atol and it is not a risk I will take with my children. It would be a nightmare if anything went wrong.
I book pay the deposit then pay the rest when it's due. I just keep the money in my bank. Then do the same the next year.

We deliberately did a package this year even though ferry / campsites was cheaper direct. When Brexit was supposed to be March we wanted to know we could cancel and only lose £99 if necessary. It was an additional insurance premium basically.

I buy my flights as far in advance as possible so I know I’ve got them and don’t have to budget for them later as the trip itself will be £££ (meaning money I spend during the trip) including hotel and in my case a couple days skiing. That spreads the cost out for me as flights are about £2,000.

On the odd occasion we’ve used travel agents, mostly for skiing as it’s often cheaper/easier because of the long transfer, we’ve always paid the lot upfront. I think I’d probably forget to pay otherwise! Normally we DIY though as we’re not really package holiday types- I’m pretty sure I’m not exposing us to unnecessary risk by having booked a flight to France direct with BA

We pay when we book. For summer holidays usually around March. We've never flown anywhere so never tried a package deal, except for our honeymoon and to be honest, DH sorted that.

Not sure I follow your saving though, we put a bit aside each month so if you'd normally pay in Feb, and because of the travel agent have to pay in June you've already saved the Feb-June for the next holiday.

It doesn’t matter when it’s due, you can still continue to save for the following year can’t you?

Were going away in Aug next year. Just booked it. Paid 10% deposit per person (plus flights) and then the balance is due 10 weeks before we go. It depends on the company imo.

I always DIY because it means I can get exactly what I want. I looked at a package a few years ago but wasn't prepared to pay a booking fee. WTF is that about? Like Tesco charging to pay!

I buy flights as soon as they're available and pay up front for accommodation on Booking.com as its usually cheaper.

This year I booked cancellable accommodation in case Brexit messed things up but looks like that was a bit premature!

Holidays come out of a savings account that is topped up every month so we can always pay up front.

i book via a travel agent for anything abroad, for the ATOL protection and because it’s less hassle. This summer I booked in March, paid the deposit and paid the rest in May.
We don’t do hugely expensive holidays though. All ds needs is a pool, somewhere new to explore and a reliable 23 degrees.

Also there’s only two of us so it’s less issue to save up.

I pay the week before because that's when I book. I can't face booking earlier. We went on a mini break yesterday and booked the hotel on the way on the train.

We do both. We have our 'main' holiday at Christmas which is somewhere hot and AI, this is booked a year in advance and we pay by direct debit to spread the cost out. Smaller holidays I book flights as soon as Easyjet release them so they are dead cheap then pay for accommodation much nearer.

You may find it helpful to have a separate account just for holidays, and not dip into it for other expenses. Then you save regularly into it and it's available when you need to book, and whether that's six weeks or a year ahead, you just need to make sure you only spend this year's amount.

I don't understand why can't you just save every month anyway

I don't really understand what you mean. We're always last minute with holidays so pay upfront however we book.
If you book a DIY for this time next year you have to pay for it all now.
If you book a package for this time next year you would pay a deposit now and the balance next June.
If you have the money now to cover the DIY why would you not have the money to cover the package?

Why not have a savings account for holidays, put money in monthly. With package holidays you can pay at any point btw it's just not due until that date, you can pay early. The cruise we are going on allowed you to set up a monthly payment if you want

Why would it make any difference? Just put a set amount each month aside regardless of how you booked

I just pay up front for everything when it's booked.

^And what if you wait to pay until 6 weeks before your holiday then after the holiday you want to book for next year but a diy flights n hotel works out cheaper than the package but of of course you have to pay for the flights in full
And often the hotel in fullnin advance
You have less time to save^

You're really overthinking this, you can just save for more than one holiday at once.

And just because you don't have to pay until 6 weeks in advance, doesn't mean that you can't. You can pay when you book, or any time between booking and the deadline for full payment. Although I wouldn't recommend that you do this, in case they go bust, you should be protected by ATOL, but it might take time to get your money back, and you'd probably need money to pay for another holiday in the meantime.

Why don't you allocate £x per month to holidays in general and put it in a savings account. Then you can use this money to pay money due for this year's holiday, or next year's holiday or a holiday in 2 years time should you wish.

We've tended to do packages for abroad and DIY for UK trips. I'm glad that we have done that because recently a holiday company was able to arrange an 'exception' for us. Meaning that we didn't lose any money (having paid in full for the holiday according to their payment schedule) when we had to cancel the holiday due to a family member's terminal illness and then death. Our insurance didn't cover us because we had the diagnosis before we booked the holiday. (Diagnosis not given with any timeline though)

So we have credit with the company to use next year.

We book in advance and then pay at the last minute according to schedule. Works for us