There is a common way of planning a holiday that seems perfectly logical until you look at the flight prices. You pick the hotel first, usually because you have found a good property or because the dates work with your leave from work. Then you search for flights that fit around that reservation. The problem is that hotels and airlines don’t follow the same pricing patterns, so the dates that give you a good room rate aren’t necessarily the dates that give you a good airfare.
Frequent travelers sometimes reverse the order. They look at the flight calendar first, find a reasonably priced combination, and only then start looking at accommodation. It sounds like a small adjustment, but it can be surprisingly useful when you’re planning a leisure trip with some flexibility.
Skyscanner’s calendar and flexible-date options make this particularly easy because you can see how the fare changes across several departure and return dates instead of checking one combination at a time.
A One-Day Shift Can Change More Than You Expect
Suppose you’re planning a five-night trip to Bangkok. You initially choose Friday to Wednesday because it seems convenient. When you check the flights, however, you discover that the Friday departure is considerably more expensive than the Thursday one.
Instead of immediately accepting the higher fare, check what happens if you shift the entire trip forward by a day. Perhaps Thursday to Tuesday is cheaper, or Wednesday to Monday works even better. You haven’t changed the destination, the length of the holiday or even the number of leave days by much, but you have moved away from a busy departure period.
This is one reason experienced travelers don’t become too attached to their first set of dates. They know that a calendar can look very different once you start moving the trip around by a day or two.
Hotels Can Sometimes Work in Your Favour Too
There’s another reason not to book accommodation too early.
Hotels often have their own weekday and weekend pricing patterns. A property that is expensive on Saturday night might be much cheaper on Monday or Tuesday. If your flight is already cheaper on those dates, you can sometimes end up saving on both sides of the trip.
This is particularly useful for city breaks where there isn’t a specific event forcing you to arrive on a particular day. Instead of deciding that the holiday has to run from Friday to Wednesday, you can compare several combinations and see which one produces the most reasonable overall cost.
The goal isn’t to find the cheapest flight and then find the cheapest hotel separately. You’re trying to find a set of dates where the entire trip works well together.
Sunday Returns Are Often Worth Checking Carefully
Weekend returns are another area where flexibility can help.
A lot of travelers want to come home on Sunday because they need to be back before work on Monday. That makes Sunday flights attractive to a huge number of people, particularly in popular leisure destinations. If your schedule allows you to return on Monday or Tuesday instead, it’s worth checking whether the fare drops enough to justify the extra night.
Sometimes the difference is small and there’s no reason to change your plans. Other times, the additional night costs less than the saving on the flight, which means you’ve effectively bought another day of the holiday without increasing the total budget by as much as expected.
This is the kind of comparison that’s difficult to make when your hotel and flights have already been locked in.
Use the Flight Calendar Before Booking Anything Else
The useful part of this approach is that it doesn’t require any complicated trick.
When you know roughly where you want to go, open Skyscanner and look at a wider range of dates first. Check what happens if you leave a day earlier, return a day later or move the entire trip into the middle of the week. You may find that one particular combination is noticeably better than the dates you originally had in mind.
Once you’ve found a few sensible options, then check hotels and other bookings around those dates. This way, you’re not trying to force an expensive flight into an itinerary that has already been built around accommodation.
Convenience Still Matters
There is a limit to how far you should take this.
If saving ₹2,000 means taking another day off work or paying for an extra hotel night that costs ₹5,000, it isn’t really a saving. The point is not to become obsessed with the lowest fare displayed on the screen.
Instead, look at the complete trip. Consider the airfare, accommodation, airport transfers, time off work and even how much of your first and last day you’ll actually get to enjoy. A flight that costs slightly more but arrives at a sensible hour may be far better value than the absolute cheapest option.
The useful habit is simply to check before deciding. Your first choice of dates may turn out to be perfect, but there is always a chance that shifting the trip slightly creates a much better combination. And when you’re already spending money on flights and accommodation, spending a few minutes comparing those possibilities on Skyscanner can be well worth it.
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