First time booking separately

[Mrschopper]

Hi All,

Just after some help with a few questions I have. As the title suggests we have decided to ditch the package holiday and book separate this year. Last night i booked the villa, after reading the great advice on the villa section of the DIBB. We are going 5/4/19 to 19/419. 4 adults and 4 children. What I would like to know is:

1. When can I book flights? Is it best to book them as soon as they become available or should we hold off a little?

2. Is it best to book flights and car separate or book a fly drive?

Many Thanks in advance for advice

[duchy]

I booked our villa for September last July ... I checked flight prices for the current year so I knew what was a "good price" for my dates and once flights went on sale I didn't book straightaway as flights were higher than my target price. As soon as fights appeared at my target I booked , maybe had I held on a few more months prices might have fallen lower but equally they may have gone up. It's a gamble and you need to balance out booking a certainty and knowing you are booked versus taking a gamble they may drop further... but what if they don't, are you prepared to/able to pay more. There's no one answer , we all draw the line in different places.

[amandajane10]

I started looking at 11 months when flights came out and i had a price in mind i would like to pay. We always book car hire separately as sometimes Insurance isnt included in Fly drives.

[Doggie Diva]

I find BA fly drives very competitively priced, all insurance is included too. I’m flying into Tampa this year as it was cheaper than MCO and last summer immigration was horrendous. It’s worth pricing up flights with Norwegian, Thomas Cook, Virgin and Thompson (Tui) and then shopping around for car hire too.

[7SeasSailor]

There is no easy "best" answer. You now have to keep doing comparisons until you get flights with or without a car at the price that you want.

[alisonjones]

Agree with all the above - we have just booked flights for our October trip but found that BA flydrive much more competitive than I thought - so this year first time ever we fly out from Gatwick - if there was only the two of us would have held my nerve and waited a bit but because there are 6 of us this year and flights just seemed to be increasing we booked.

[4fromsuffolk]

Thank you for this we have booked a villa from 6/4/19 for 2 weeks and was wondering about flights and when to book. The last 3 times we have had a package. We thought we would brave it ourselves this time.

[4fromsuffolk]

I have set up dummy dates on Kayak for this year around the Easter period so I can see what flights seem to be costing this year so when they are released at 11 months before departure I will have a feel of the price.