The early guest catches the booking discount

When I wrote the title of this Blog I was thinking about "The early bird catching the late worm" ... but in hindsight the analogy ran out of steam about half way through so maybe I'd better move on!

I've written before about a flurry of booking enquiries for 2010 I received in August 2009, and more surprisingly the booking we took in August 2007 for the following August - an amazing 363 days in advance, well I've been surprised again with how well organised some people are with their holiday plans.

Last week I received an enquiry from the Spellman family through the France holiday home advert we run on VillaRentals; enquiring what I would charge for a holiday in August next year.

I replied back saying that we normally review the prices for each season towards the end of the year, but for all bookings made this year I would hold the prices the same as this year. Our booking calendar on our Gite website and on VillaRentals only runs up to the end of December 2010 as I don't normally "open up" bookings for next year until September, but as the Spellman's were keen to book I manually marked the week they were interested in as available.

And later that day they made their booking, confirming an 8 day holiday for August 2011 - a staggering 418 days before they're due to rent the Gite.

I will have to talk to Liz and decide what we want to do for our own holidays in France next year because if I don't get organised we risk not being able to stay their ourselves. Meanwhile if you are interested in holidaying with us next year (or even this year we still have availability in September, October and at Christmas), do drop us a line with the dates you are interested in booking and I'll be happy to take your booking.

The question is, can anyone beat a 418 days in advance booking?