By Wallace Immen - See full article
It's so cold your bones are chattering. Wouldn't it be a dream to chuck it all and just head to the airport for a flight to anyplace that's warm?
The ads for last-minute vacations are certainly enticing with their promise of selloffs that will make you the smartest shopper on the sand. And it's easier than ever to book at the spur of the moment, thanks to online booking and paperless e-ticketing.
But while waiting until the last minute can net you a great deal, it's not for everyone, experts say. And it pays to do a lot of homework before you start packing your bags.
"The tradeoff in going last-minute is you may have to make a lot of compromises on the destination, the hotel and the kind of room you want," says Jill Wykes, spokeswoman for Sunquest Vacations, a travel company that sells both regular and last-minute packages.
"The more you care about where you go and what you want to do when you get there, the more it pays to take your time in comparing options," she adds.
For those who want to go the last-minute route, Wykes suggests picking the destination first, rather than the date, because being flexible on the day you leave can give you a broader range of alternatives. For instance, mid-week vacations are in less demand than weekends, so you'll probably get the best selection of last-minute deals if you can travel on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Then you have to decide what your vacation priorities are.
If price is the overriding factor, a good strategy will be to start with an online search for all-inclusive packages. Particularly for families, booking an all-inclusive makes it easier to budget, knowing there won't be extra expenses for food, drink and recreation.
Cruises are a good bet too because the price includes meals, activities and entertainment.
But can you get there?
Even if a resort or cruise line is offering an unbelievable deal, it means nothing if you can't get there from here. Many packages described as all-inclusive refer only to the resort and don't include air travel. And that can pop a last-minute dream.
Air availability is tight this year because the strong dollar has more Canadians thinking of making getaways. There are only so many aircraft, and even with extra charter flights to popular sun spots being added in the winter, many holiday flights are already booked solid through the cold months.
This has become a particular problem this holiday season for people trying to book cruises. Most weekend flights are already fully booked to popular cruise ports and that means passengers may need to be flexible about their travel days, says Aida Vincelli, vice-president of the travel company The Cruise Professionals in Mississauga, Ont.
"For example, we recently booked a couple for a New Year's cruise, but they are flying to Florida two days before and having to stay two days after the end of the cruise before flying home," she says.
"Unless they are flexible like this, people would be best off thinking of January," she suggests.
Even the first week of January is difficult because people are still coming back from New Year's trips.
January used to be the shoulder season for air travel and resorts, and so the first two weeks of January traditionally saw some of the deepest discounting of the winter. But that's less true now. Baby boomers are taking longer vacations around the holiday season and doting grandparents are often willing to pay to take the family and grandkids on a trip even if it means taking them out of school.
One way around the flight issue is to search for what destinations still have air availability before shopping for a place to stay. When doing a web search for package trips, include the words "air included."
Some companies specialize in packages that include air and transfers. These include Sunquest, Air Canada Vacations, Air Transat Vacations and Sunwing Vacations. Other sites, such as SellOffVacations.com, include packages put together by Sunwing and others.
Remember there are more options for flying out of major hubs such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver than there are out of smaller cities such as Regina or Halifax, where there may not be a flight every day to your favoured destination.
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