WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH 2020Should we delay booking our
flight to Australia?
There are advantages to waiting till the last moment for a Perth flight (Getty/iStock)
Q I have a daughter living in Perth, Western Australia. My husband and I wish to travel there towards the
end of April and stay for the month of May. When we visit we stay with her, so we need only book our
flights. In light of Covid-19, should we delay booking the flights to see what course the virus takes over the
coming weeks? The downside to that, as I understand it, is that the cost of flights increases nearer to
departure date.
Name supplied
A I certainly recommend waiting for a good few weeks, probably until the day before you want to leave.
There are several advantages to this strategy.
First, while air fares generally rise sharply in the last few days before departure, that is happening much less
at the moment due to “soft demand”. When bookings are thin on the ground, the airlines’ preferred
strategy of ramping up prices in the last few days before take-off is not easy to sustain. Tomorrow I could fly
from London to Oslo and back, for example, for £44 return. And the UK-Australia market has
typically been immune to steep fare rises immediately before departure.