Why I won't book my European summer holiday in the January sales

It’s very tempting to book your summer holiday in January. The UK is cold and dark, and it’s impossible to avoid the January sales holiday hype. This year, however, I’m planning to hold out for a better deal. 

Why? Because when we tracked more than 40,000 summer package holiday prices from major providers last year, we found that prices - on average - came down after January. 

In fact, you would have paid £112 more per person (on average) for a European package holiday if you’d booked in January, than if you’d left booking until the month before travel. That’s nearly £450 of holiday spending money straight down the drain for a family of four.

We can’t be sure that 2026 prices will follow the same pattern, but it’s enough to make me sceptical of the so-called early-bird discounts. 

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When were the cheapest package holidays on sale last summer?

July was the cheapest month to book a holiday in August for all of the key European destinations below, except Morocco and Croatia. 

But leaving it so late could leave you with fewer options. That's why the table also shows the next-cheapest months to book last year, and how much you would have saved by booking then, rather than in the January sales.

Why did holiday prices drop?

For years, we at Which? Travel have advised you to book peak summer packages as early as possible. After the pandemic, there was such demand for summer sun that prices started high and - aside from a dip during the January sales - went up and up as we got closer to summer. But in 2025 it all changed.

In the majority of destinations we looked at, we saw the highest prices for an August summer holiday the preceding October, and the lowest just one month before - in July. 

The reason behind this change may be that people are waiting to commit to holidays amid financial concerns. Several companies, including Jet2, reported that bookings were made much closer to departure last year. This trend likely led to some deep discounting.

Remember - we’ve only looked at European holiday prices here. It's likely that long-haul destinations follow a completely different pattern.  

So when should I book my summer holiday in 2026?

Unfortunately, there’s no way to predict the best time to buy for your exact holiday. Prices go up and down according to demand, but the same economic pressures that caused people to delay booking until later in the year still apply in 2026.

If you can be flexible on timings, and don’t have your heart set on a specific destination, you may want to hold out and see what bargains July holds. There remains some risk to that. You may find that you’re stuck with the worst flight times and the grottiest resorts.

But if, like me, you know exactly where you want to go, and you’re confined to travelling in the school holidays, then there is an alternative. The data from last year shows a booking window between April and June, when prices were lower - on average - than in January, but availability remained high. 

That’s when I’ll be scouring the offers from our Best package holiday providers and hoping to bag a bargain.