How far out do you plan vacations?

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElizabethT Another great usage of Google calendar is that I can drop all of our travel details into it, such as flight info, tour group info, lodging info, etc. By then sharing it, it allows everyone, including me, to have access to all pertinent information anytime it might be needed.

At least some of this happens with Google's Inbox (gmail). All the confirmations are now being grouped and organized in the Trips section. Pretty neat I think.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal ...On our August flight out of SFO on a 787 the best seats were already booked.

Uh Oh!

My flight to Paris is early May, and last week there were very few seats taken. Better go look again now.

[NW-Bound]

Anyway, this is the first time that we planned a trip 6 months in advance. Usually, the fuse was very short from when my wife happened to spot discount airfare. It was a matter of a few weeks.

Well, the last cruise we took was booked almost a year in advance, but that was not the norm.

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Uh Oh! My flight to Paris is early May, and last week there were very few seats taken. Better go look again now.

I should qualify my statement. There were some premium seats that were up front with lots of legroom near the galley. Those were the ones that were already booked.

If one is going straight Economy seats, there is still plenty of those.

[NW-Bound]

OK.

What I worry about is if the normal Economy seats get all taken, leaving me with Economy Torture seats.

[Teacher Terry]

It makes sense to do some advance planning because it is easy to get busy with life and then not go anywhere. Planning is a big part of the fun as well as looking forward to the experience.

[pixelville]

Having done airline pleasure standby travel for years, you could say planning was after we boarded a flight. Really you don't know whether you will go back home or end up in London for a few days or maybe Bangkok. Although we typically had our preference list heading to the airport and often ended up going to one of our top choices. But basically for numerous years and trips, we never had a single booking and figured out once we got to a place. Never had a problem except once in Maui where it took us a while before we could find a hotel, but then we had a car.

[48Fire]

We really don't plan at all now. We had a couple trips bite the dust due to family emergencies, so we just do things on the fly. ER allows that

[Act2]

I think that's great - thinking ahead like that, assuming you can really enjoy the 'here and now' when you do travel. There have been many articles over the years that suggest it is the anticipation of vacation that provides the most enjoyment, often even more than the actual vacation itself. If that's true, thinking ahead like that may maximize the happiness and positive experience of having the freedom to travel a lot.

[YVRRocketSurgery]

When we're flexible with our yearly international travel plans, our planning is based on when we see seat sales or cruise sales. We'll typically see seat sales about 6-9 months prior to departure date. For cruises, we may book around or within final payment dates.
If we have a specific destination in mind, we'll typically start planning 9-12 months in advance.
For travel within North America, we'll typically plan 3 months or less.

When we start planning for a trip, we start entering notes/data into a Google Sheets spreadsheet on google drive with multiple worksheets:

• Budget worksheet: Transportation Cost (Airfare, regional, local), Accommodations, Food, Activities, Communications, and Miscellaneous
• Planning: Rough sketch what we want to do each day
• Hotel Info (Room type, breakfast included?, cancellation policy, etc)
• Travel Info (Terminal info, luggage info, check-in close times, etc)
• Climate Info for the days we're in town
• Food: Local foods we want to try and the local names
• Shopping: What we want to buy, conversion rates, etc
• Cell phone/prepaid sim options
• URL: Addresses of all the websites that we have come across while doing research.
• Pre-trip Planning Activities: Eg. Visa, immunizations, etc
• Packing List
• Culture: Tipping, common phrases, etc.
• Site per city: A list of sites in each city that might interest us.

We'll also start pinning locations in google maps so they're easier to find.

We just started using Google Trips which consolidates your travel info (eg Reservations) and provides some guidance in terms of things to do. The info can also easily be saved to your phone so it's accessible offline. It will also automatically add info into your Google Calendar.
We're still using TripIt which also consolidates your travel info.

[brett]

We keep our options open when we travel. We will book a hotel for when we arrive and the day prior to departure. Most of the other nights are booked two or three days ahead of time while we are travelling. That way, we can change our plans on the fly. On several extended trips we left home on one way tickets and took care of return air when we knew where/when we would be flying.

Two years ago we ended up in Sicily with no return air. We saw great offer on a Med cruise from Rome to Barcelona. The cruise line had good one way air home. So we grabbed it. Took a discount flight to Rome the next afternoon and boarded the ship the next day. Thanks to the power of the internet.

If we had prebooked everything we could not have done this. Plus, we enjoyed Sicily so much that we decide to stay for an extra week. Again, pre planning may have made this difficult or involved expensive re-routes/cancellations.

[Fishingmn]

I have a spreadsheet that lays out places we'd like to go and a rough 2-3 year plan/budget.

I normally plan specifics about 8-12 months out. Our trip to Ireland in May is pretty much figured out - it helped that I planned that far out as I was able to snare frequent flyer tickets at the minimum award level. We are meeting with some friends next month to start hashing out specifics on a 2 week trip to Italy next fall.

We do know we want to do a trip to Hawaii with the kids & their significant others in winter 2018. We'd like to do Spain, Scotland, Prague and Australia within the next 5 years but no specifics beyond that.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brett I cannot comment on domestic flights. However, our personal experience (in Canada) is that flights 0-45 days out are often less expensive than flights 90-120 days out. The best prices we ever had on transpacific and transatlantic flights were 10 and 40 days out respectively.

Domestic prices in the US - about 30 days out unless high season / busy route.

I found an article that says about 60 days out from US has best prices for Europe. That jives with my personal experience except for the occasional big sales.

[Danmar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister I try to plan the next 12 months of travel, but only major trips. I'm perfectly capable of just going off for a week or more with only a couple of days notice.

Likewise. We have a set yearly travel budget and usually decide on significant trips over a rolling 12 month horizon. These trips usually involve airline points, so the lead time is necessary. Will often fill in shorter less expensive trips 3-6 months in advance and on occasion will take off somewhere on a few weeks notice. Having said that most of our actual travel (not part of main travel budget) is back and forth to our various homes. This is often done in very short notice.

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Domestic prices in the US - about 30 days out unless high season / busy route. I found an article that says about 60 days out from US has best prices for Europe. That jives with my personal experience except for the occasional big sales.

We are a bit fussy about flights as they are 10+ hours to Europe. The flight we want looks like this on Google flights (3 week trip, leave and return on Sundays):
Feb 2017 $1031 ...(about 60 days out)
June 2017 $1218
Aug 2017 $1221

This looks like the premium for booking far out is not high. I would expect summer fares to be higher so is there much of a premium at all? Not sure.

FWIW, we booked this last week at $1184 for an August 2017 flight. It had been somewhat lower a month ago.

[Danmar]

Looks like posts 50 and 51 are the two ends of the spectrum?

[Lsbcal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danmar Looks like posts 50 and 51 are the two ends of the spectrum?

Now what we don't know is who is having the most fun. But then this is not a zero sum game. Everyone can be a winner on this one.

[brett]

When we are looking for overseas flights we do four things-

-understand the routing options and the airline options

-understand the alternate airports/cities

-understand the pricing and the fare codes/restrictions, by season, and know an attractive fare when we see it

-be prepared to buy tickets as soon as the right price/routing hits (because it may only be there for a very short time)

After we have purchased we don't bother looking any more....secure in the knowledge that there will be those on the plane that paid more than us and those who paid less. If we wait for the lowest fare chances are we will either be staying home or paying full fare.

[HMMY]

1 to 2 yrs out for skiing and destination travel since the accommodations we want (8 people) typically book out a year or more in advance.

[jonat]

We generally plan about a year out. The one we just returned from was booked 14 months in advance. We already have our two 2017 trips booked and have identified a trip for 2018.