To feel it's a bad time to book a 2023 holiday?

[TippyToesKnows]

There are some good deals around. But the kind of holiday we're after, at peak time (summer) for 4 of us, is around 6k.

I can't shake the feeling that it's really daft to use savings at the moment with the economic climate as it is, just in case things got even worse and we needed those savings for something much more important.

But then over on the Travel section, there's a thread about people spending far more on 2023 hols so I don't know if I'm being far too paranoid. And would be stupid to miss the chance to book while the prices are good?

I'm feeling the same, but with a far smaller budget!

I booked about 5 months, knowing what I know now i probably wouldn't have. It's not costing a fortune as I'm not tied to summer holidays luckily.

We booked our 2023 holiday in June 2022 and I regret it. Financials are very tight at the moment and we could really do with our cash flow being free of the burden of paying up the holiday. Also, Im annoyed that we didnt just save up funds and try to book a last minute deal (hindsight is 20/20)

Annoyingly, I paid a lump sum to it when we booked but have since been saving for the "Holiday Pot" in a separate bank account rather than paying direct to Jet2. I wish I had done that saving method from the beginning and not paid the lump sum, as I could cope with losing the deposit and just cancelling, but can't afford to just throw away £900.

I think it depends. Could you afford it comfortably when you booked it? If so, that's hopefully still ok. Why are you worried? Is it practicalities or perception of others seeing you go away?

Ok yes you'd prefer not to be 'tied in' but as long as it doesn't put you into hardship is that ok? We booked a massive 50th bday trip before all this started for next April. I've paid off a decent amount every month, we can't cancel. I worry people will think we are showing off BUT we are ok with the cost and fuck if I want to live and we are being cautious in other areas of life 👍

Not sure who you book with OP but TUI will release their black Friday deals on Monday. I have my 2023 holiday booked already...

I'm going to consider booking for 2024 if the price is too good to miss!

I can understand that people living on the very edge of their budget will be struggling, but if someone could afford a holiday in June 2022 (and was therefore reasonably comfortable then), what has shifted in the last 5 months to make that holiday unaffordable?

Interest rates have been predicted to rise since much earlier this year, so that shouldn't have been a surprise. And we have known about rising energy prices since much earlier this year too. Food prices started hiking months ago too.

Has there been a job loss in your family?

Never in our lives have I booked a 6 holiday.
Our Holiday's are much cheaper, I'm thinking about under a grand but I'm not booking anything at all yet.

The most I'm thinking is a weekend in a city and maybe something here.

Until I know what has prices will be etc I can't say what to book.
We haven't been hit yet with anything hideous but we are bracing.

We don't use savings for holdidays we use money we have saved for holdidays.

I will be booking a holiday for 2023 btw. Just haven't done it yet.

YANBU. We were excited to book but I’m less certain now. Prices have sky rocketed. Makes me feel sick thinking my kids possibly won’t have the same amount of holidays as I did (usually went abroad 2x a year) growing up, despite the fact we are average earners.

Why not start a holiday specific saving account and wait until closer to the time. Or alternatively a cheaper holiday

I've booked our 2023 holiday. I've booked it for a cheaper month than usual, and we will be a bit more skint next year.

But we live for our holidays. We don't buy expensive luxuries at all at home, we live very modestly, but I'm determined we must still have a holiday.

We will quite happily eat beans on toast/baked potatoes/pasta and sauce on a regular basis (meat once a week) in order to afford it, which we did last year too.

It's not that it's now unaffordable, just that it's not as high up the priority list at this moment and the funds would be better spent elsewhere.

We had a bad car crash three weeks ago and whilst the insurance is covering the bulk of the outstanding car finance, we need to make up the excess amount plus deposit for new car & annual insurance on a new car. We can pay that right away by using the Holiday Pot funds but will obviously need to replace it in time. In my previous post, I was simply meaning that if we could cancel the holiday and lose very little, I would make that choice as its not top of the list at the moment. But we are where we are and it will work out. Lessons learned for next year 😊

(I'm not looking for any financial advice here btw, I was only responding to a post about holiday bookings and where my mind is this evening)

That makes sense. And having to dip into savings for an unexpected bill like a car crash is going to cause issues.

We have scaled down planned holiday spending, but I think we started looking at ways to economise in the spring/early summer when the food shop started getting very pricy.

And our holidays were never usually £6k anyway!

We havent booked anywhere yet but will be going away. We've decided to stay in the UK again having previously gone long haul 2 or maybe 3 times a year...we are enjoying the good old staycation!.
Plus it means we can go away 4 or 5 times for a week each for a tiny proportion of what our former holiday spends would be.

I booked for 2022 in 2021, paying a monthly direct debit to jet2. It was fine, payments made no problem. Then a month before we were due to go dh ended up I'm hospital so he couldn't work, I was meant to be returning to work then for spending money obviously I couldn't do that so ended up borrowing money from my parents for spending. However that was totally unforseen circumstances and we did still have a nice time. But I hadn't got insurance yet so couldn't cancel

We are going away again in February for 11 nights, we are living frugally just now to make sure we have lots of spending money to give the kids a good time. Also getting the holiday for free.