BhamTravelDad is back! And in the planning stage for our next great family trip. Let's see....2014 was Italy; 2016 was Germany; can you guess 2018? Ok, we thought of England, it's still on the list, but the boys need to spend some time in France. France proper, that is, Alsace is it's own thing. Paris, Loire, Brittany, in two weeks in June. It's on.
What? Isn’t that a bit early? In one of my 2016 posts on selecting destinations, I argued that the best strategy was to narrow the field down to 3-4 choices, and then monitor the air travel costs to see if you can get a good cheap flight to any of those. The reasoning being that the air spend is often the biggest budget line item, and has the most variability.
Example: if you looked up a typical flight from Atlanta to Paris, you’ll probably find $1,200 as a median offering. But, if you catch it at just the right time? $600. Quick math says for a family of six, that’s a $3,600 savings. Go ahead and compare that to the next highest item, lodging. Family of six will cost $150/room/night, typically, needing two hotel rooms. So, on a 10 day trip, your hotel budget will be $3,000, meaning you can save more in smart air shopping than in your entire hotel budget. This is why I’ve always prioritized the air part of the trip.
OK, that means that I’m shopping this much too early. Your best discounts for air usually happen three to four months out, seldom more. Airlines don’t even post fares more than 330 days out. So. What gives?
AirBnB, that’s what – it’s helped change the landscape. Even at popular locations, hotel inventory at good spots stays open at 6 months out. And cost variation is generally +/-20%. But that’s hotels. If you find the right house/apartment rental, you can save 50% over a hotel stay, and get a really nice place. But the best rentals get booked way early – often by families making recurring vacations to the same place. And in this case, a good vacation home can make a tremendous difference on both the cost and the experience. It’s enough of a difference that this time, I’m going to find the place first, and then trust that a reasonably decent flight will appear within the parameters of my booking on the rental place.
Needless to say, I’ll let you know how this works out. Stay tuned.
