Will Ryanair have a summer sale?

hermadge

Hi I am trying to organise a weeks holidy to spain (any costas) anytime after 18 july till august 31st for our family of four, I figured it will be cheaper for me to get the flights myself and then rent an apartment so will Ryanair lower there prices any further than they r already? Best I have found is four return flights to reus in early August for £356 all in, apartment rental around £500 , should I book those flights or hang fire ? Thanks in advance .

jamesbrownontheroad

Ryanair always has a "sale" or promotion on it's homepage. It's the offer promo'd in the box at the top of the left hand column.

As a semi-regular commuter on a Ryanair route, I have been watching these sales for about nine months now, keeping a record of what the offer is, when it's valid for, and how long it's available for. I've kept this data in a Google Docs spreadsheet which you can access here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aste06-Zgp-bdGFVX1RaaTNUQi1oTUxWakJkQ0FOWEE&hl=en_GB

Some general rules:

• It is not true that the best fares are sold far in advance
• Ryanair generally only "discount" spare capacity on flights departing in the next two to three months... everything before and after that magic window of opportunity will be priced more highly.
• Ryanair ONLY ADVERTISE FARES INCLUDED IN THE CURRENT PROMOTION. That's why promo'd fares don't include the online check-in fee. If they advertised fares that include the unavoidable check-in fee, they'd be breaking advertising rules about unavoidable extra fees. So you will only see fares included in the current promotion advertised.
• If you can, you should wait until about two to three months before your travel date. Until last week, promotional fares were available for May and June. This week, it's just June. I would expect discounted sale fares for July appear in one of the next few promotions, and they'll stay available until some time in June.
• Promotions change about twice a week, usually (though not always) at midnight on Monday and Thursday
• Promotions are either "xxx number of flights at £x" or "up to xx% of all flights" within the promotional timeframe
• If it's the former of those two, not all routes are necessarily included in the promotion, although some (such as mine) generally always are.
• To see which routes from your airport are included in the sale, what dates are included/excluded go to this page: http://www.ryanair.com/en/fares-to-europe and find your departure airport. It's either listed in full with all destinations on that page, or linked from the bottom of the page. For example, this is the page detailing fares from Stansted to Reus: http://www.ryanair.com/en/cheap-london-stansted-uk-barcelona-reus-spain-flights Click on any of the destinations to get more info on that particular route.

I have to run now - so check back as I may update this post later in the day. I'd quite like to use the spreadsheet I've been compiling to offer MSE users a comprehensive Ryanair booking guide.

hermadge

So hang on for August then ?

jamesbrownontheroad

I would wait a while. Assuming that you are looking for Stansted - Reus, I would bookmark the page that details the best available current fare...

http://www.ryanair.com/en/cheap-london-stansted-uk-barcelona-reus-spain-flights

...and get a feel for whether or not Reus included in whichever promotion is currently running. As I said, they generally change twice a week, so check back after each 'sale' expires. If you see Reus included in most or all of the promotions over the next week or two, then I reckon there is a good chance you'll be able to nab them for a bit less than the current fare sometime in mid to late June.

However, before you get as entangled in fare-watching as I have become, remember that it depends entirely on how much you are willing to pay and how much the holiday is worth to you! I can afford to wait because my work is flexible around my travel dates. If this is your one big holiday of the year, you may feel more comfortable paying a bit more now. If you do that, remember the golden rule and don't go back to check how much it is later!

hermadge

we will be flying from liverpool, will keep looking daily on the website , thanks for your help.:)

jamesbrownontheroad

In case you haven't found it, here's the direct link to the Liverpool / Reus page:

http://www.ryanair.com/en/cheap-liverpool-uk-barcelona-reus-spain-flights

hermadge

Ok thanks for that

left-right

A lot of useful information there, thanks very much for posting

teamcullen

It's strange as the headline price yesterday was £8 one way, yet I booked return flights from Dublin to Liverpool and Dublin to Newcastle for £5 each way.
Now it's advertised as £5 and the flights are actually £3! Not that I'm complaining, £5 is an absolute steal for a flight. I've noticed this promotion is only for flights in June though, usually they have a couple of months included in each sale.

jamesbrownontheroad

teamcullen wrote: »

It's strange as the headline price yesterday was £8 one way, yet I booked return flights from Dublin to Liverpool and Dublin to Newcastle for £5 each way.
Now it's advertised as £5 and the flights are actually £3! Not that I'm complaining, £5 is an absolute steal for a flight. I've noticed this promotion is only for flights in June though, usually they have a couple of months included in each sale.

I suspect that you have just caught a sneak preview of the promotion that will start around midnight tonight. I noticed this as well on Monday night, towards the end of the £8 promotion, when a couple of domestic UK flights in June priced up at £5 each way.

So maybe a £3 sale is coming when the current one expires at midnight :beer:
EDIT: whoa... just found some £2 fares in July, although they add the online check-in fee so aren't likely to be promo'd fares.

teamcullen wrote: »

I've noticed this promotion is only for flights in June though, usually they have a couple of months included in each sale.

If you take a look in the Google Docs spreadsheet that I linked to in post #2 above, you'll see that the sales generally cover a two month window. As you get closer to the sooner of those two months, there's usually a week or so of sales covering just one month, and then the next month opens up...

So in plain English:

April/May
April/May
April/May
May
May
May
May/June
May/June
May/June

etc