Core Holidays
Original research

When should you actually book?

We capture live package prices from ten UK airports several times a day and keep every single one. Package-holiday price history isn’t recoverable after the fact — no archive stores it — so this record only exists because we started writing it down.

1. The month you fly matters more than anything else

Across 5,777 holidays, the median price in Dec 26 is £585 per person, against £978 in Aug 27 — a 40% difference for the same hotels, the same board and the same number of nights.

£736
Sep 26
£640
Oct 26
£596
Nov 26
£585
Dec 26
£606
Jan 27
£642
Feb 27
£669
Mar 27
£700
Apr 27
£708
May 27
£829
Jun 27
£913
Jul 27
£978
Aug 27
£810
Sep 27
£746
Oct 27
£712
Nov 27
£716
Dec 27
£732
Jan 28
£818
Feb 28

2. Prices move far less often than you’d think

Of the 115,623 holidays we have priced more than once — the only ones that can show a change — 85,433 have moved since 2 August 2026. We track 148,757 in total, but most have only been captured once so far, so they are not evidence either way.

We checked whether we were simply being served a cached response — we weren’t. The server regenerates its answer on every request and returns the same number. Package prices are set from contracted hotel allocation and flight seat buckets, which reprice on a far slower cycle than the live-auction pricing people assume. The practical implication: refreshing a package price repeatedly during a day is wasted effort. Which week you choose is worth hundreds; which hour you look is worth nothing.

Why we keep capturing anyway. A booking-time curve — how one fixed departure moves as its date approaches — can only be built forward, never reconstructed. Every day not recorded is gone permanently, so the log runs regardless of whether today’s numbers moved.

3. The airport you fly from is worth real money

For an identical hotel, identical week and identical departure date, the gap between the cheapest and dearest UK airport averages around £71 per person and reaches £316. For a family of four that is meaningful money for a longer drive. Any hotel page here lists all ten airports side by side.

One caveat we hold ourselves to: comparisons must pin the departure date. Compare “cheapest in the month” across airports and you overstate the gap by roughly double, because each airport quietly flies on a different day.

How this is measured

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