Trip Planning - Chicken or Egg
 

How do you handle your trip planning when planning a trip 9 - 12 months in advance. Make lodging reservations first and then book you airline tickets or first purchase your airline ticket and then book your lodging?

ummmm wouldn't it make more sense to get your tickets first so you would know if you were even going to be in the country at the time of your lodging reservation?

Hi trav,

This far in advance you can make hotel reservations, which you can always cancel if you find a better place, while looking for cheap air fares.

Indeed, it can be a chicken and egg matter for certain kinds of indecision/uncertainty.

The price of your airfare is likely to be the single most expensive ONE item - - which coud vary as much as 100% (i.e., x to 2x), but your lodging will be your largest COLLECTIVE item (often 2x to 4x). Thus, if it is about splurging for one particular place, especially for an extended stay, it may indeed boil down to how the whole budget and timetable wil come together.

And the item too many novices overlook is INTRA-Europe transportation cost(s).

I think you have to tackle it from both directions, with a clear idea on how set, or how flexible you are on dates, budgets and expectations.

Generally speaking where are you thinking to go, and when? and from where?

All these things enter into how to approach planning many months in advance.

Best wishes,

Rex

I typically book airfare first, then lodging.

Book first what is easiest and cheapest to change or cancel with no fee. I would think that would be hotel in most cases.

By the time good airfares show up, the better budget hotels are booked, so I do hotels first (make sure of cancellation policies first).

Working on a rough itinerary, I book my hotels, giving myself an extra day at the beginning or end to allow for adjustments after I buy plane tickets.

As soon as I buy the plane tickets, I contact hotels with my adjustments. Never had a problem doing it this way.

I also do airfare first. I periodically check the airfare of different possible itineraries. WHen I see a good airfare I grab it (usually start looking around 6-8 mo. in advance), then do hotels. Carefully check cancellation policies at hotels though, just to make sure you can cancel if something better comes along. I found some great fares in the fall ($394 for multi leg journey nyc-madrid-london-nyc, all nonstop), last time I checked it was nearly 4x that for the same dates!

I do hotels first, being sure of their cancellation policies.
Then when I lock in my airfare, I make sure the hotel dates are still exactly what I need--may have to adjust by a day or two in order to get a better airfare.

But there's no hard and fast rule. If I'm planning a budget trip and know that many of the best economical hotels book a year in advance, I may let that drive my decision-making. On the other hand, as rex points out, airfare is the single-biggest nut to crack. If I get a good deal on that, I can always search diligently to find an acceptable hotel.

I just got back from a 4-day visit to London. My decisions on dates and budget were driven by a low air fare.
After that, I trolled around for an inexpensive hotel, and found several that had openings, but then again, it's winter time.

I normally do lodgings first, if they have a reasonable cancellation policy. They are generally easier to change if need be.

Usually we have certain hotels in mind when planning a trip. I'll book these first, again checking cancellation policies, and search for airline bargains closer to the date. We are not that particular regarding flights and can be satisfied with anything that gets us where we want to go. Lodging's more important to us so we concentrate on that first.

First, I get the vaction time approved at work. Then I look at what the going airfare is, then I book hotel, specialty tickets, and when the airfare drops, I book that.

Very good question. For all my vactions -- Europe, Mexico, and domestic -- I've always purchased my airline ticket first, and then worked on finding good-value accomdations. The only way I'd consider doing it in the reverse fashion would be if there was a hotel I just <i>had</i> to stay in but, so far, that's never been the case.

I just finished planning our trip to France next September. My method is to first sit down with a good map or maps and plot the route. Then, using the red and green Michelin guides I began planning the itinerary. Next came the hotels, which I booked in October and November. Finally came the airfare for the transatlantic flight, as I kept hoping--it was futile--that the amount would drop. Today I bought air tickets for the Nice to Paris portion of the trip, and in mid-June I will buy the TGV component, as you can't do so more than 3 months in advance.

This is pretty much the way I've approached each trip, as I like to hae everything worked out well in advance.

Airlines. We go for the flight times we prefer, that much in advance, we are able to be more picky about times and all.
We usually have a few ideas for lodging and book those a little later..although one time, we booked everything in February for an October trip.

I always book air first, that gives me an enormous amount of flexibility for departure dates. A fair can be 500.00 more expensive within any given 7 day period.

Furthermore, often hotels won't quote 6-12 months in advance IF that is into a new year, as most hotels plan to raise their rates in January. Typically I book the airfare as soon as I see a decent price... often months in advance. Then I spend a few months researching where I want to go in-between and what sights I am interested, then between 2.5 months and a few weeks I start booking the hotels.

You guys are all so industrious. I've never planned a trip that far in advance! Maybe it's because I usually travel offseason...

I am going to Spain next month. I bought my airfare in early December and started booking hotels after that, reserving the last one right before X-mas.

I am tentatively going to New Mexico in August, but I won't even think about booking anything for that until the spring!
:D
Karen

You have already gotten so many answers, but I think alot of it depends on what is important to you.

for all 3 past trips, and now with the 4th this spring, I have always booked a place first, then done tickets later.

On our first trip we wanted an apartment in rome that had 3 bedrooms, and 2 baths,plus I really wanted a terrace.
as they are not that easy to come by, when it was available was the first thing I dealt with.
and I found that a year , for this specific apartment was NOT too soon to book!

If you have your heart set on a specific location-villa-apt. etc, booking first, then airline tickets is the way to go.

If I could just wing it, I would probably do the airfare first, grabbing a bargin.
But, with school aged children, I need to plan around specific times.

whcih ever way you go, have fun planning,
I think I have become addicted to that part as much as I have the actual traveling

I always book the airfare first which means, to me, that I am GOING and then I decide where I am going to stay. I tend to be much more flexible about accommodations than the dates of departure and return. Admittedly, there have been times when subsequent to booking the air the prices have fallen but I figure that is just one of those chances you take.

I always start with the flights. I can sometimes be flexible about the dates I travel and a few days can make all the difference for airfare.

I often use open-jaw flights so once I have these booked, I start researching how long I want to spend in the different places, what areas I want to stay and only then does the hotel search really begin.

But I am never too concerned what particular hotel I stay at in any given place so if my first choice happened to be booked up I wouldn't mind.

It's funny but I'd never thought if doing it the other way round.

I book my airfare first, then put in my vacation request at work (just in case they balk, I can say but I've got these non-refundable plane tickets), then we decide what towns to visit &amp; for how long, then I look for my hotels. I'm at that stage right now planning my trip to Great Britain in April.

Somehow it just seems more &quot;logical&quot; to buy the plnae tickets first since that's the first thing you do on your trip.

In reference to the remark by capo about a place that is considered a &quot;must-stay&quot;... I agree that I have never felt that way about a hotel.

But for a villa stay, it really can be what villa can we find at what price with the right number of bedrooms/etc, that has the dates available we can work with. I have done three trips like this, including the Fodorites' 2001 Italy trip, and finding the right villa was clearly the first step.

Rex you hit the nail on the head. That is or was my dilemma. Part of our trip will be renting a villa in Southern Tuscany close to Umbria for four couples.
Previously I would not make lodging reservations until Air tix were purchased but I am finding some of the villas already booked in Mid to Late September. Usually I would wait with the lodging until flights were confirmed.

There are a few circumstances where, even 9-12 months out, it will be essential to ensure that a hotel room is available at all (make a reservation you can cancel), and then book tickets. For example, if you're planning to go somewhere when a festival, trade fair or sports competition is taking place. Try finding a hotel in Sydney during the Rugby Cup etc. This becomes increasingly important the shorter your time horizon is (e.g. booking a month ahead, you might find that you can't find an affordable hotel anywhere in certain cities). So, since the airline ticket is usually very restrictive, book the hotel first. You can change your mind later. Keep in mind that you might not know that you're planning a holiday at a time and in a place where some major event is taking place. So even if you're planning 9-12 months ahead, make a few inquiries of hotels (including asking them about festivals etc) - and if things seem wide open, go ahead and wait a while as you watch airfares for sales.

Rex, I actually do have one &quot;must-stay&quot; hotel in Europe, in Nice -- this wonderful family-run place I've stayed at 4-5 times since my first visit to it in 1994 -- but they've always have room (at least in the non-summer months when I've been there.)

I can't recall ever booking accommodation first. Also not terribly fussy about one particular hotel, but I wouldn't want to be in town for a major event and we usually go off season.

I was always in the habit of checking availablity of a sampling of rooms in our chosen area using something like Expedia before booking anything. Just to see if it looks like there's some sort of unusually high demand. I don't book, I just check availability around town in general. Not sure if that method really is terribly effective, but so far so good or it could just be dumb luck.

I'm sure that in the case of an apartment, villa, etc that we'd do that booking first and run the risk of a little higher airfare.

We are planning a trip to Belgium and France for October. So far, when I have checked hotel websites, most are not available for booking yet. How far out do most hotels (2* &amp; 3*) book rooms? I'm most concerned about Paris at the end of the trip - the last week in October.

I never plan that far in advance. If I think it may be difficult to get hotel reservations, but fairly easy to get flights at a good price for the approximate dates I'm interested in, then I'll make hotel reservations first, since I can cancel without penalty with ample notice to the hotel if I can't get flights on the days I'd tentatively planned. When I took advantage of a great one-day airfare sale for $268 round trip Newark/Milan two years ago, I grabbed the flight right away, then decided where to go and looked for hotels. When I'm being particularly indecisive and procrastining a lot about making plans, as I was for my trip this past fall, then one tactic that can help get me off the fence is to force myself to make plane reservations before I have my trip all figured out, because that forces me to hurry up and decide on my itinerary. I don't usually get my flights more than about a month and a half in advance, and usually make hotel reservations not more than a month before leaving.