Best time to book with TUI?

[Sakura7]

OH and I have our eye on a holiday in Rhodes next June - already been on sale on TUI's website for a couple of months now and prices have fluctuated wildly in that time. Unfortunately we're not in a position to book it just yet.

Do they do any good Black Friday deals or are prices likely to drop again anyway? Never used them before so any tips are much appreciated.

I usually book with Tui however we're never able to book until around 3 months before departure but I start looking quite early! I find Jan/Feb has the been deals as they usually have a discount code available around that time of year as part of a 'January sale' plus there's usually cashback available with cash back sites. Obviously I can't guarantee.

Occasionally you can get good deals if you book with two weeks to leave but your choices are then more limited (even with 3 months to departure two hotels I had my eye on were sold out for the dates we wanted)

Thanks Morris, yeah I reckon the hotel we have our eye on will probably be sold out if we wait til just before. Will have a look in January and hope we can get a deal, the price is pretty high at the moment but we've seen it cheaper a few weeks ago.

Ime Tui prices hugely fluctuate so it is difficult to know when to book. We're going away next week and paid £1,500ish back in June but before we booked it was £1,700 and since booking the price has varied between £1,380-£2,100(!)

Have you looked at booking a flight and then book direct with the hotel?

Unfortunately there are no direct flights from my local airport to where we want to go, apart from TUI and their flight only options are expensive!

Not sure if this is true but I have been told websites 'know' when you search the same holiday or flight multiples times and can hike the price up, apparently if you reset your router your IP address changes and they think it is a new search and prices may change. Prepared to be told this is rubbish but might be true?!

TUI are on complete savings cashback site so that gives you a 10% discount/cashback - just remember to cancel membership afterwards as it's £15 a month (or use the site for cashback at least once a month and remember to claim the £15 "monthly bonus" on that purchase so that membership is free).

They are on Quidco cash back site also.
That’s free to use

@barleyreed that’s completely wrong because user tracking is IP independent. Even the simple cookie doesn’t rely on your IP not changing. Have a read about for example
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvas_fingerprinting

OP I would like to know the same as you too! I booked early with TUI this year but I have seen the price gone up and down. Interesting to hear January is a good time. That is quite late for flight booking for when I do it independently.

It varies. With a Santa trip to Lapland in December it was November but things sell out. With the summer I have found they go up and down - tend to book around February - did that last year and price stayed fairly constant after that for Costa Rica. You don't seem to get great deals by leaving it to very last minute in summer and places do sell out. A few months in advance I've always had a good choice left but don't think its noticeably cheaper than Feb or Jan. Haven't really looked pre January. Did notice just looking pushes up the prices. Often I will find one tell DH then go to book and its gone up 50 pounds, not much but still bit annoying though I've found one way round it is to look from different airports a fair distance away when just browsing hotel details.

I always book packages as I want to fly from local airports and it's much more expensive to book separate flights and hotels.
June is often a cheap option as it's well before school holidays.
Prices go up and down and it's hard to predict the best time to get both your choice of holiday and the best price. Whatever you do, once booked, don't check the price again. There's nothing you can do if the price goes down and it can only sour the holiday for you.

However if you know that your chosen hotel is likely to book up for June (not many do) then just book now.

Check the booking T&C’s and your travel insurance that you’re covered if we have a Brexit no deal and your flight can’t take off.

@ihatethecold Yes they are and on topcashback as well but usually at 2% vs 10% on CompleteSavings so you only get £20 cashback per £1000 vs £100 per £1000. That's £160 more on a £2000 holiday and you don't have to pay the monthly fee as long as you buy at least one item via the site per month (from any retailer offering cashback) and claim the £15, which takes 2 minutes to do. I would always make at least 1 purchase online somewhere each month anyway (Superdrug, Boots, Just Eat, ebay, etc etc) so it works for me as I get higher cashback (10% on everything vs 1% to 4%) and the monthly fee is refunded so it works out free, plus you get 20% of Argos, Arcadia, New Look, itunes, CIneworld etc gift cards, e-gift cards, 4% off Sainsburys/Tesco etc each month too.

That’s great. I will look into it

Thanks all. Still a bit too early to book for us so I reckon we'll look again later in the year. Seems to be very hard to predict.

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/14/uk-holiday-firms-urged-warn-risk-post-brexit-eu-flight-disruption

Looks like TUI are one of the holiday organizations not provided any reassurance yet so you are probably best not committing any money at the moment.

We booked a holiday at the end of May for August as prices were going up and up on the advice of another travel agent.
Low and behold, a week later they went down and we could have potentially saved £500 😂