Amelia Casey-Rerhaye explains why booking ahead can give you more choice, flexibility and peace of mind.
My friends and I wanted to go on holiday this summer, so we did what any group of vaguely organised adults would do: we drew up a three-month calendar, marked on all our plans and tried to find a single week that worked for everyone. There wasn’t one.
My dreams of a villa with a pool overlooking the Mediterranean were unceremoniously quashed. People are busy, and the more variables you throw into the mix – kids, work, school holidays, budgets, and everyone’s increasingly complicated calendars – the more difficult it becomes for the designated Organiser of Plans to get anything firmly pencilled in. And that’s exactly why booking your villa holiday early makes sense.
Booking the plan makes the plan
It may seem ludicrous to think about your summer holiday a year in advance. You might not even know what you’re doing next month, let alone next summer. But that’s actually one of the biggest advantages of booking early. Once the holiday is in the diary, everything else can be planned around it. School dates are known, annual leave can be requested, and the whole group has something concrete to work towards.
This is particularly useful for families and groups of friends, where finding dates that suit everyone can feel like a military operation. The earlier you start, the more flexibility you have to find dates that work for the whole group, rather than trying to squeeze a holiday into the one remaining week that everyone happens to have free.
More villas to choose from
One of the biggest benefits of booking a villa holiday early is simple: more choice. If you have a big or rather picky family like mine, there can be a surprisingly long list of requirements. Enough bedrooms, a private pool, somewhere to barbecue, air conditioning, outdoor space, and perhaps a pool table or table tennis to keep everyone entertained.
Then there’s the destination. Do you want the beaches of the Balearics? The mountains and coastline of Crete? The villages of the Algarve? Or are you still deciding between Sicily and Corfu?
Booking early gives you more opportunity to find a villa that ticks all the boxes, rather than compromising because your first choices have already been snapped up. This is especially important if you’re travelling during popular periods such as the school summer holidays, when demand for particular villas and dates can be high.
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Make budgeting easier
Booking early can also make budgeting for your holiday feel more manageable. Rather than having to find the full cost of a holiday at the last minute, getting your villa booked well in advance gives you more time to plan for the expense, taking the stress out of booking the holiday altogether.
With Villa Plus’s range of payment plans, you can even secure your stay with just a £100 deposit and spread the cost with easy Direct Debit payments. The best price finder is another handy tool, enabling you to find the lowest-priced villas by day for months or even years ahead.
And once the villa is organised, you can gradually put money aside for the things you’ll want to enjoy while you’re away, from dinners and day trips to that inevitable holiday shopping spree.
The dates you actually want
It’s not just about the villa itself. Booking early can also give you a better chance of securing the dates that work for you.
For families, school holidays can make availability particularly important. For groups of friends, you might need to coordinate annual leave across several workplaces. And if you’re travelling with extended family, finding a week when everyone can make it is difficult enough without adding limited villa availability into the equation.
Getting your holiday booked early means you can stop playing calendar Tetris and start looking forward to the actual holiday.
More time to plan the perfect trip
There’s also something to be said for having plenty of time to plan. Which beaches do you want to visit? Where will you have lunch? Is there a boat trip you’d like to book? Which local restaurants are worth trying?
You don’t have to plan every minute, of course. Some of the best villa holidays involve doing absolutely nothing beyond getting into the pool and deciding what to have for dinner. But having more time means you can research the things that matter to you and book anything that might be popular or limited in availability.
And when the holiday finally arrives, you’ll already have done the hard work.
Give your future self something to look forward to
Perhaps the best reason to book early is one that has nothing to do with calendars, availability or budgets. It’s having something to look forward to.
Imagine waking up on an ordinary Monday in mid-winter, months from now, knowing that your villa holiday is already booked. The flights are sorted, the villa is waiting, and you have a week in the Mediterranean on the horizon. Suddenly, that drizzly, chilly morning doesn’t seem quite so bad.
There’s something wonderfully reassuring about knowing that your next escape is already in the diary. And for families and groups, having a holiday booked also gives everyone something to get excited about together.
So, if you’ve already started dreaming about next summer, don’t leave it to the last minute. Get the group chat going, find a date that works and start exploring. Your future self and the designated Organiser of Plans will thank you for it.