You are actually almost too late to book your summer holiday in March: popular regions in particular are often already fully booked. We tell you how you could still get bargains now – and what you can do better next year.
Holiday homes can sell out quickly in popular regions. As the holiday home portal FeWo-direkt found out in a survey, 35 percent of Germans want to book the same accommodation as in the previous year. On average, repeat bookers are one and a half months earlier than people who decide to find new accommodation.
“In order not to go away empty-handed, many families start looking for suitable holiday accommodation at an early stage,” says Wolfang Pagl, Director Vacation Rentals at FeWo-direkt. The pandemic years have shown that early bookers can choose from a much larger range. This would give them significantly better chances of “finding a holiday home with the desired equipment and a good price-performance ratio,” Pagl continues.
Pentecost and summer holidays: You should book by these dates
If you want to have more accommodations to choose from, you should keep a few dates in mind. You should book before March 16 for the Pentecost holidays, before April 26 for the summer holidays, before July 24 for the autumn holidays and before October 27 for the Christmas holidays.
But these are only guidelines. At the end of February last year, only 35 percent of the accommodations for July on the Balearic Islands were still available. Similarly in popular holiday regions in Germany: In Schleswig-Holstein only 30 percent were free. As early as January 2023, FeWo-direkt only had around half of the accommodations available for these two destinations for the coming July.
If you want to book spontaneously, you should consider less popular regions
However, if you don’t want to decide where your holiday will go this year, you can find something with a shorter lead time. Because according to Pagl, the long advance booking period applies above all to travel destinations that are in high demand, such as the German North Sea or the Baltic Sea.
The booking situation on the mainland is becoming more and more relaxed. That means: be open to alternatives! For example, according to FeWo-direkt, the booking situation in the Dithmarschen district for July was even better in January than in the North Friesland district.
The same applies in Spain. If you can do without the Balearic Islands, you should look around in the province of Barcelona, for example. According to the portal, significantly more accommodation was available there than in Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca, although the beach and Mediterranean Sea are attractive in both regions.
Tips for early booking
However, early bookers should keep a few points in mind. So it is worth paying attention to flexible cancellation conditions. This allows you to change your mind at the last moment, should something come up. If you still book later, you are advised not to use too many filter options on the portals. Does it really have to be a pool, iron and washing machine? If you make fewer specifications, you are more likely to find good offers in the end.
This article was written by (amw/spot)