Booking for next year - am I being dim?

[MerylSqueak]

I'm trying to book a hotel in Paris for next summer. Everything I try is coming up as not available, apart from super expensive £300 a night hotels. Has everything really sold out or have rooms for those dates not been released yet?

A lot of places don’t take bookings that far in advance.

There is something called the Olympics happening

Yes, if you're trying to book for end July, beginning of August it will be the Olympics!

Oh bugger. I really hadn't put two and two together about the Olympics.

Dim then. I don't really care when though. I've just tried a couple later in August and it's the same.

Seems very expensive for non-Olympic times I admit.

bur If you genuinely don’t mind when I wouldn’t go to Paris in august. It’s hot and stuffy and all the locals leave meaning smaller independent businesses are shut.

spring and autumn are definitely better times to visit.

I don't want to go in Summer but it's a special present for DD and in her teen ignorance she wants summer. Oh no! This is going to be a bit of a mess ..

£300 not surprising. I booked Amsterdam this summer and my family room in a central ibis is costing that. Someone I work with discussed with me at the time whether their very reasonable priced hotel they'd booked which was a bit further out but still central would be better and we priced it up but summer holiday dates and space for 4 still came in at the same.

Hotels are more expensive nowadays.

In normal times most places don’t book that far ahead.

Ps if u r going to Europe, go the very last week of the summer holidays…prices tend to dip then (but you aren’t likely to see the full range of properties available til end aug/beg. Sept at the very earliest.)

I'm finding more now but lots of the hotels we'd prefer aren't booking yet. So, is looking in September a better bet or will I have lost my chance?

Can you I don't do this much?

Insert 'tell'!

Difficult to reserve a hotel more than a year in advance I’d say.

same goes for flights at least with the cheaper airlines eg Easyjet

Ok thanks. We don't usually have much call to book hotels so I don't know the ropes.

It's too early to book for next summer OP. Try again in the autumn. You can book packages more than a year in advance, but for hotels you need to wait.

Scheduled flights you can usually book 11 months in advance of your return date. Low-cost airlines are different.

Thanks. Panic over!