Short answer: November and January are the cheapest months to travel, and the school summer holidays the most expensive, with December close behind. Measured across 80 of our own packages, the same holiday costs a median 23% more in August, 21% more in July and 19% more in December than it does in its own cheapest month. On short city breaks the gap is far wider: a two-night Venice escape runs £129pp in January and £279pp in July.
Everyone knows holidays cost more in August. Far fewer people can tell you by how much, or how close December comes. So we took the monthly pricing behind 80 of our own packages and measured it.
What we found
For every holiday we sell with a full price calendar, we compared each month against that same holiday’s cheapest month. That keeps a £129 city break and a £2,149 grand tour on equal footing — the figure is the premium you pay for timing, not a comparison between products.
| Month | Typical premium | Holidays priced |
|---|---|---|
| January | +3% | 78 |
| February | +9% | 78 |
| March | +15% | 27 — small sample |
| April | +15% | 12 — too few to rely on |
| May | +11% | 79 |
| June | +16% | 79 |
| July | +21% | 79 |
| August | +23% | 78 |
| September | +13% | 78 |
| October | +11% | 80 |
| November | +5% | 80 |
| December | +19% | 79 |
March and April are shown for completeness but we would not draw a conclusion from them — only 27 and 12 holidays respectively carry pricing for those months in the current programme.
December comes close to August
The school summer holidays get the blame, and they earn it: August carries a 23% premium and July 21%. But December is not far behind at 19%, and it gets there in a single winter month rather than across the whole summer.
The practical consequence is that the two cheapest months of the year sit either side of one of the most expensive. November is +5% and January is +3%. Moving a trip out of December and into the month either side is one of the largest savings available on the calendar.
The long-haul winter programme is where December bites hardest: it is the dearest month on thirteen of our sixteen winter sun holidays, at a median premium of 28% over each trip’s own cheapest month.
What that means in actual money
Percentages understate it on short breaks, where the base price is small and the swing is not. These are live figures from our current programme:
- Venice, 2 nights — £129pp in January, £279pp in July. +116%
- Milan, 3 nights — £149pp in January, £309pp in July. +107%
- Florence, 3 nights — £169pp in January, £329pp in July. +95%
- Rome and Venice, 5 nights — £259pp from November to February, £499pp in July and August. +93%
- Disneyland Paris — £259pp in November, £449pp in August. +73%
- Prague, 3 nights — £179pp in November, £289pp in July. +61%
A European city break is the most timing-sensitive thing we sell. Long-haul beach holidays move less in percentage terms because the flight is a larger and steadier share of the cost — but 15% of a £2,000 holiday is still £300 a head.
How we measured it
Worth being precise, because a number like this is easy to quote and hard to check.
- Every figure comes from the published monthly pricing on our own live packages — the same calendar a customer sees on each holiday page.
- Only holidays with at least four priced months were included, so a partial calendar cannot distort the curve. That gave 80 packages and 827 month-prices.
- Each month is expressed against that holiday’s own cheapest month, then we take the median across all holidays. We use the median rather than the average because a handful of extreme city-break swings pull the average well above what a typical holiday does — the average for August is 30%, the median 23%.
- Prices are lead-in, per person, based on two sharing, with flights included.
What this is not
This is one operator’s programme, not the UK market. It is weighted towards European city breaks, Christmas markets and long-haul beach and multi-centre holidays, because that is what we sell. A tour operator with a different mix would produce a different curve.
It also describes list pricing by departure month. It does not measure how far in advance you book, which is a separate question and one we cannot answer from this data.
What to do with it
If your dates are genuinely flexible, November and January are where the value is, and the shoulder months either side of summer — May and October, both at +11% — beat June, July and August comfortably while the weather in most of our destinations is still good.
If your dates are fixed by school terms, the premium is not avoidable, but it is knowable. Ask for the price in the month either side of the one you want before you commit. On a city break that comparison is frequently the difference between two holidays.
We price every package month by month on its own page, so you can see the curve before you enquire rather than after.