Booking Flights near flight date

Chris_Robb

Chris_Robb

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I am planning the voyage from Marseille to Corfu for this year - starting early May

Unfortunately, unlike some of you more Lucky liveaboards SWMBO does not DO long passages, so I have to use friends on sections of the journey.

Now as you all know - weather, breakdown, etc can throw a spanner into a precisely planned timetable, so it is not really feasible to book early.

Change over points - Marseilles, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Corfu/preveza

I have complete schedules of flights on all the usual suspects.

The question is - if one books just 2 weeks or even a week before a flight, does the price rise to extreme proportions, or do most of the "low costs" have a ceiling cost? One example of BA to Sicily is most days quote around £75 now for June, but Sat June 12th is £714.

Any helpful suggestions.........?
 
Luck of the draw! Airlines (budget in particular) price seats in blocks. The size and basic price of the block will depend on their experience on the route. So weekends at half term holidays to Corfu always start at a high price. Lower demand flights will start at a lower price and probably have a higher number of seats on sale at the lower price. So, I have return flights for two from Gatwick to Montpellier at the end of February, booked on 27 Dec with Easyjet for £120 total.

Their booking programmes sell flights according to a pre-determined pattern, so when the first X% of seats are sold at £Y the price rises. Sometimes you can hit it "on the cusp" and get one price for one person, but a higher price for 2 because there is only one left at the lower price.

On many flights this process is automatic so clearly the earlier you book the lower the price. However "dynamic demand management" may come in - fancy term for oh dear lots of empty seats! when management will intervene and lower prices either specifically or using promotions such as "20% off if you book before midnight".

So, other than booking early there is no fool proof strategy. On some routes you have the added bonus of charter flights and it is often possible to get late seats because the arline will sell empty seats for what they can get - usually through local travel agents.

All this uncertainty is the price you have to pay for generally low fares!
 
Flight Prices

As a rule of thumb, based on six years flying back and forth between UK and the Med, we reckon that with Budget Airlines the earlier you book the better and with Charter flights, then the later the better. As noted we generally have the few days flexibility to accomodate the availability of the latter.

What you can do, as we have on a couple of occassions when the Budget Airline ticket prices have been very low, is to book two flights a week apart and just write-off the cost of the flight we didn't use - we once flew Rome UK for about £14 each and that price included the cost of three sets of tickets.
 
Guys - thanks for the thoughts;

The idea of booking 2 flights and discarding one could be explored as flights at the moment are very cheap.....

I need to get the plan together and get booking.

I came across this website, which seems to consolidat charter flights 6

http://www.satellitetravel.co.uk/PrevezaAirport.aspx

Are there any others which would specialise in mid mediteranean?
 
we are doing a very similar cruise this year - starting a little further west in Agde, but starting just after Easter.

We are booking flights from changeover points knowing that there is a distinct possibility of not using some but having alternatives in our pockets. easyjet seems the way forward from our research so far.

also interested to know why you have elected for Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily rather than west coast of Italy. at the moment we are torn between the 2!
 
Andy and Lyn said:
we are doing a very similar cruise this year - starting a little further west in Agde, but starting just after Easter.

We are booking flights from changeover points knowing that there is a distinct possibility of not using some but having alternatives in our pockets. easyjet seems the way forward from our research so far.

also interested to know why you have elected for Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily rather than west coast of Italy. at the moment we are torn between the 2!
Click to expand...

Andy and Lynn
Italy or Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily. It seems that just about everyone I have spoken to says it is just far too expensive to do mainland Italy. Also little in the way of anchorages compared with the islands.

We will be popping out of the canals and Port St Louis around the start of May - where is the best place down there to hang out for a few days - mast up etc which is not an arm and a leg?
 
Chris_Robb said:
Andy and Lynn
Italy or Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily. It seems that just about everyone I have spoken to says it is just far too expensive to do mainland Italy. Also little in the way of anchorages compared with the islands.
Click to expand...

My experience has been that Sardinia and Sicily can be just as expensive as the West coast of Italy. However, I agree that anchorages seem to be more available.

Sciacca on Sicily is really cheap, but a bit of a one horse town :)

Anchorages at Villasimius, Taormina, Siracusa and Porto Palo, are excellent, and there are some fine ones, albeit busy, on the Aeolian Islands.
 
Richard10002 said:
My experience has been that Sardinia and Sicily can be just as expensive as the West coast of Italy. However, I agree that anchorages seem to be more available.

Sciacca on Sicily is really cheap, but a bit of a one horse town :)

Anchorages at Villasimius, Taormina, Siracusa and Porto Palo, are excellent, and there are some fine ones, albeit busy, on the Aeolian Islands.
Click to expand...

Richard - the voyage is mainly a delivery voyage as SWMBO is not keen on doing 6 months on board, so compromises have to be made - get the boat somewhere where it can be left at an affordable rate. So a relative rapid transit to Greece over 7-8 weeks - we do not intend to make a habit of marinas if at all. Hence the island route I think is better and shorter.

Key anchorages near Airports on the way are a key planning point, Olbia (looking at charts seems to be loads of anchorages), Palermo, Cantania - (Syracuse).

Hope things are working out for you OK. It was sad you had to cut short your voyaging.
 
Hi Chris & Thanks for the kind words.

Syracusa is an easy train and taxi ride to Catania airport, as is the anchorage at Taormina where the station is adjacent to the anchorage! Quite safe to leave the boat for a day with a good forecast.

Syracusa is the safer as it is a large enclosed natural harbour, albeit it gets windy every afternoon. Up to F5 almost regular as clockwork. The holding is a thick mud/clay and, after 3 weeks, I almost couldnt get my anchor up - thought it was caught under a rock, or on a cable. Eventually it came up, along with a ton of solid mud. If you get dug in here, I think the chain would snap before the anchor dragged :) Nice city aswell. Beware the barnacles. After 3 weeks the bottom of my dinghy was covered with them, as was the outboard, and the swim ladder. I'm guessing the hull was covered aswell, as I couldnt get more than 4.5 knots in a calm sea at full power :)

If there is a station in/near Sciacca, it's cheap, you wouldnt spend much on a bit of R & R in the marina, and could leave the boat for days/weeks at a time if necessary.

On Sardinia at Villasimius, they seemed to allow us to leave the boat in the marina during the day at no charge, (I asked the question, and that was the deal). Lovely anchorages for overnights. Not sure how easy it is to get to an airport.
 
"I have return flights for two from Gatwick to Montpellier at the end of February, booked on 27 Dec with Easyjet for £120 total."

If you are lucky enough for them not to be cancelled.
 
We flew with Ryanair from Stansted to so-called Toulon, which is actually Hyeres for £42 each in April. We booked about 6 days before. If you can wait till really late, on some less used routes there are bargains. There are also some good deals to Lamezia in southern Italy which yachties use to get to Vibo Valentia
 
Flights all booked

We managed top book all the flights yesterday - All on Easy jet - which has the most unfussy web site of all - easy and very fast, apart from the bloody Eborders passport info you have to put in!

Gatwick Marseille, then Olbia to Gatwick - £75.

Gat wick to Olbia 0 £45,

Gatwick Palermo - £35

BA fro Catania to Gatwick €140!

Tried to see if there werer flights to Reggion Calabria but could find who flew there apart from Altialia - at £200.


Could not do any booking with Olympic Air - as they did not appear to have flights anywhere at all - I think there site must have had a problem - so still to do.

So the mamoth excersice of organising 10 individuals has been successful in a remarkably short time.

Some interested parties just did not reply having expressed interest - really annoying - whats wrong with - "Chris, sorry I can't make it". So crossed of the drinks list!!!!:mad:
 
Olympic Air

Olympic Airlines went bust in September 2009 and became Olympic Air. It was a sort of privatisation of the former national carrier. Flights already booked were honoured but with many time changes, and some routes have been discontinued.
The website stopped taking bookings at that point and this year I have only found flights offered through third parties such as Expedia and ebookers.

We have been trying to organise our return to Leros in April and unlike last year have been unable to book a through ticket Heathrow to Leros via Athens. I looked at the Greek website too and it doesn't offer flights to Leros. I have given up the idea and have booked flights to Kos, from where we can get a ferry to Leros.
 
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