WHAT goes up must come down, and while we all know that’s true of the planes jetting us off to foreign climates, it’s easy to forget it could also be the case with flight fares.
I played Ryanair roulette with our flights to Fuerteventura for my family of five and managed to save £30 just by leaving my booking for a few days.
If I’d taken more of a gamble by not reserving seats or waiting until we were away to book the return flight, I could have shaved more off, but it’s all about finding the right balance between risk and reward.
I think most people assume that flights will only get more expensive the closer to your holiday you book, but that’s not what I found.
Instead, you need to be wise about when you make your booking and you could save enough to splash out a bit while away.
Some of the options I looked at from other airports or different days were around £800 for similar flights, so it does pay to be flexible with where you fly from and when.
In the end, I chose flights from London Stansted to Fuerteventura that cost £180 for the basic fare for the five of us, plus £45 for priority boarding and one extra piece of hand luggage and £35 for seat reservations so we could all sit in comfort.
Once you know which flights you fancy, you need to keep a close eye on the fluctuations in fares and take advantage of that.
If you book at a weekend, it’s likely to cost you more for the same flights than booking midweek.
I also found that flights can change price over the course of a day so that they cost £30 more by the evening than when I looked first thing in the morning.
I usually start looking for affordable fares by using a flight comparison site like Skyscanner and playing around with the options of where to fly from until I find planes with cheap seats and family-friendly flight times.
Once I’ve narrowed down the options, I spend a couple of days watching the fare fluctuations to get an idea whether a saving is possible.
I booked our flights to Fuerteventura a fortnight before we flew, but if I’d left it later, the fares dropped by a few pounds as the day of departure got closer.
However, with five people flying, you have to be aware that if prices suddenly jump instead of falling, you could be lumbered with fares that are now out of your price range or you could even be left looking at a flight that no longer has enough space for you all.
It’s all about finding the right balance of having peace of mind that you have secured your flights with enough time to plan your trip while also not feeling that you’ve been left out of pocket.
Given that our flight to Fuerteventura was half empty when it came to it, I could probably have gotten away with spending less on seat reservations.
But that’s not something you can really gauge beforehand, so if your children are young or you have a tall travelling companion who needs extra legroom, then I think forking out for suitable seats in advance helps make the run-up to your break less stressful.
I feel like I played Ryanair roulette and won, given that I saved about a tenth of our fare just by booking at the right time.
It’s a bit of a gamble, given that fares could go up or down, but spinning the wheel worked for us, saving enough cash to buy a round or two of drinks at the airport to toast our first family trip of 2024.
Ryanair has launched a brand new website feature that will save you money on your next holiday.
Similar to the Skyscanner “everywhere” button, the new function is called the “any destination” feature.
And this dad revealed how he keeps costs down on his family holidays.
