Best flight strategy for next year?

[sarahb74]

Ok, so having booked accommodation for next summer I'm getting a bit twitchy about not having flights booked! We want to fly direct with Virgin premium economy so I'm thinking there are a couple of options, either book a fly drive now, or wait to 11 months out for the flight and I have a couple of queries.

1. Could the flydrives fill the plane (or at least PE)? Or are only a certain number of seats available for fly drives?
2. Are the flydrive prices a good indicator of the final flight prices? Particularly I have looked at outbound Sat 13/Thurs 18/Sat 20 (all returning 15 days later) and the Thursday is the best price, over £1000 less than Sat 13 for 3 of us, is this likely to be the same/similar price difference for the flight only?
3. Are the cheapest flights for that time of year likely to be the price at release date? I don't think they are often in the sales?
4. Apart from a flydrive is there any way to book flights now, with or without a guaranteed price?

Thanks
Sarah

 

[1nfrequent]

I know that fly-drive prices on BA can come in cheaper than flight alone prices - I'd assume that's true of Virgin too. Usually they have a set number of fly-drive prices and once they're gone, they've gone.

Re booking earlier rather than booking late, you're going to get differing advice on it. There are comparison sites that can help but ultimately it's up to the airlines as to what they do with their fee buckets. My rule of thumb is to have in mind a ballpark that I'm willing to pay. Once the price comes in at that, I buy and don't look back at the site - no point in torturing yourself over something that's not really in your control.

1F