Hotel room/Plane Ticket-how far in advance

Diamond1031

How are in advance did your wedding party book a hotel room?  And a plane ticket?

 I have been searching for rates for 2012, but I get an error so obviously I can't do that far out.  Did you call the hotel and ask them what the rate would be? 

I am trying to help a possible BM so that she can budget for my wedding.  I want to find the best possible deal because I really want her to be apart of our wedding.

TIA 

Nadia E

Im in the uk and getting married on 2012 so i wanted to organise everyting now but from what i know they only put hotel rooms out 10 months in advance, however im sure i think i have seen some 12 months but no earlier! I have had to base everything on 2011 prices. HTH

vegasgroom

Southwest generally opens up flights about six months in advance and is also often the least expensive if they serve the area your BM would be coming from.  The major airlines book a lot earlier but tend to charge more if you book really early because they're expecting people who have to be on a specific flight to pay more to guarantee that; we booked American from Miami to Antigua for our honeymoon and the price decreased by $400 once we got in the 6 to 8 month range versus further out than 8 months.  It has since started going back up.

smokeybailey

I wouldn't book air or hotel more than 6 months out unless some crazy deal comes up.  We have a room block at our hotel (which equates to about $20 off per room per night off rack rates) for 30 rooms. 

You should probably wait another 4 months before trying to book anything.  Of course, you can talk to your hotel about a block but it may be too early for that. 

Is your wedding during a high volume time for Vegas-sporting events, 3 day weekends, convention time?  If not, don't worry about it.

j_jaye

Airfares are normally released 10 months - a year out (depends on the airline). But specials are normally releases at the 6 month mark. This is due to the airline beinging able to schedule and buy/allocate gates at an airport.
You can book hotel rooms well in advance if using some of the booking sites and some hotels direct (again depends on the hotel- the more popular it is the less need to have rooms on sale for a long period).
Again you wont get any specials that far out unless the website has a sale (24hr 20% off or the like).

HTH

Diamond1031

We are looking at May 19, 2012 if the FI brother isn't graduating at that time.  I have not booked anything yet b/c I am waiting to see if the date is a GO. 

I am anxiously waiting...I want to start booking the venue so that I can have something checked off the list.    Once I book the venue then I can go hog wild on booking.  LOL

zitiqueen

As far as Las Vegas, we don't start looking until 3-4 months out.

smokeybailey

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_nevada-las-vegas_hotel-roomplane-ticket-far-advance?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:91Discussion:a7934cdd-5b7b-42c7-a415-d9d139c313eaPost:4aef9a4e-4040-45f8-98ea-224e10830813">Re: Hotel room/Plane Ticket-how far in advance</a>:
[QUOTE]We are looking at May 19, 2012 if the FI brother isn't graduating at that time.  I have not booked anything yet b/c I am waiting to see if the date is a GO.  I am anxiously waiting...I want to start booking the venue so that I can have something checked off the list.    Once I book the venue then I can go hog wild on booking.  LOL
Posted by Diamond1031[/QUOTE]

I booked my venue just recently and my wedding is in August.  You would be fine waiting to book a venue in May 2011.  Plus vegas is always growing and adding new hotels and restaurants.  You don't want to book too far in advance unless you "just know" that is what you want.  One of my favorite restaurantes, Alex at the Wynn, closed unexpectedly just recently so you may want to keep that in mind as you begin picking venues.

aegrish

we booked about 8 months out for flight and hotel.

shaq123

 we booked 5 months out . Our wedding is in May and some of our guest still have not brought their tickets.

lsvensson

Just an FYI-- I'm looking at that exact date as well, and two of my desired ceremony times (5pm and 7pm) are already taken at the Mandalay Bay that day, so maybe it's a good thing you're looking to "put a ring on" you venue this early (ha, I crack myself up...)

That said though, that IS a tricky date for college graduations and the like.  All three of my bridesmaids may still be in college then (and one has her grad school graduation the following Monday) so make sure you're definitely avoiding your FI's brother's grad.  Good luck!

Sara191431

I'm not sure how much this varies on what time of year someone books, but for our Oct. wedding, about 2 mths or so ago airfare was at $250 round trip, everyone said it was too early and they'd wait, so I listened (stupidly) and waited, about a month ago it was at $299 so I booked, now it's at $369.  I called the two main airlines out here as my MOH/best friend is looking to book, but we are getting frusterated with prices going up and up.  Both Delta and Sun Country which are the main airlines that are used out here for Vegas, said that a certain amount of seats are allotted a certain price, once those seats gets sold it goes to the next alloted seat price.  Meaning once the $250 seats were sold, then it went up to probably $299, now it's at $369.  I'm sure there is a point where it stops going up, but to me that just tells me, book as soon as flights come out!  I also asked if there's a  chance another flight will be added etc; both airlines said it's very rare.  Our only lifesaver for our guests here is if there end up being a sale for our time frame, or hopefully hotel prices go down to compensate.

Keep in mind from how they're talking gas prices are going to keep going up. 

Very disheartening for me as I really want our best friends on our flight, but what you do you do. 

Good luck!

nickikav

We are getting married in Sep and based ours on 2010 prices.
We are coming from UK and booked our flights 11 months out in Oct when the flights to Vegas were released, that was with Virgin but BA release theirs 12 months out.
Hotel we booked in Dec, so 9 months out :-)
Our flights have already gone up loads since we booked ours, we paid £570 for our flight but the same flight is about £100 more now!