BA flights to Faro

[Bruce Wallis]

Tony I agree I think villa rental prices are up this year, I have been looking at owners direct.

I think you will find that the bigger villa rental companies, Owners Direct, Affinity, James Villas et al may have hiked their prices, but most private owners have held their prices for the last 3 years or more.
The price increases you see, are not percolating down to the owners, many of whom are on fixed contracts.

Most private owners are absorbing mounting costs.

[cereza]

I agree with EMM again ( I must have caught it from Michael Crane )
Those who booked early got the benefit of cheap flights but paid full price for he villas. As flight prices have increased so villa bookings from the UK have gone down resulting in villa owners being prepared to lower their prices.
Those who booked early probably got the best deal due to the low flight prices especially those with the larger parties.

[EMM]

Owners Direct, Holiday lettings, Holiday Rentals etc are not holiday companies but are portals for private owner rentals,

All have last minute offers ( by owners ) and if you look at each properties availability chart you can see who is doing well and who might be open to negotiation.

[bruce]

Thanks for confirming that Owners Direct is not a holiday company EMM and for the tip re the availability chart.

[Bristle Si]

Luckily for us Bristol is Easyjet's main hub in the South, away from Gatwick.

Always book on the day the flights come out. Paid £120/person all-in return for both the July visit and September. Fly out on a Sunday in July and on a Saturday morning in early Sept.
We're lucky in that our private rental has remained same price for years.

I expect Ejet to trim flights from BTL in next couple of years if demand slips.
However, Bristol airport has a v large catchment area these days, stretching into S Wales (Cardiff airport is rubbish these days and is losing passengers - BTL 5x bigger these days on passenger numbers), up to Gloucester area, east to swindon and south and south west.

[EMM]

We too are Bristol regulars and have booked up to feb 2013, the winter schedule already has no flights on certain days but no different from this winter so far.

[sam]

I think an added problem is that people are booking later, January was traditionally a time for new year, new home, book the holiday. Later bookings mean that companies cannot guarantee filling the flights, so they get cancelled/merged. Knock on effect = less flights & higher prices.
Having said that, thinking back to years ago when we bought our place in Carvoeiro prices were higher than they are now. Thanks to Ryanair, Easyjet etc the prices have been much lower generally - if companies want to stay in business they could not carry on with such low prices.
Ticket prices are fluid these days and can vary from ridiculously cheap (I paid £20 return all in with hand luggage last February) to ridiculously expensive (advertised rates of almost £2K each). So always shop around, try and go out of season, and try travelling on a weekday.

[joeysoap]

In times past, before the arrival of RY & EZ, the major airline set their charges pretty high. not uncommon to have half full flights on lots of routes. not uncommon to have queues at check in desks waiting for last minute 'standby' tickets. Passengers way of telling the airlines that their fares were too high.

Enter Ryanair & EasyJet. New ball game. Ryanair (and I assume Easyjet) do NOT sell seats off cheaply at the last minute. quite the reverse. They increase/decrease fares in a seat management operation up until about 10 days before departure, after that its all one way -up. Ryanair will fly a aircraft half full to a destination before they will reduce fares at the last minute, as they know that whoever blinks first loses. So they don't play chicken with unsold seats. They know full well that if they start down that road millions of passengers will hold of from early booking. If a route doesn't pay they close it. Simples. The old 'major' carriers have followed suite hence no more 'standby' fares at airport.

You are probably better booking early if you know your destination and times of travel, sometimes (often) flights go down in price after booking and it's a chance you take, but closer to take-off time they go only one way, even if the flight is not full.