HOLIDAY prices move constantly. Most people know that.
But only a few realise just how much the time of day you book can influence what you pay.
I work in travel and spend a large part of my job analysing pricing data, and recently, I wanted to understand how big the swing really is across a single day.
Not just the cheapest day of the week, but the cheapest hour, and even the cheapest minute.
The results were clearer (and way more dramatic) than I expected.
When is the most expensive time to book?
The data shows that the most expensive time of day to book a holiday is between 9am and 10am.
Bookings made in that window came in at around 30 per cent more expensive than the cheapest time of day, according to the data.
There is a straightforward reason for this: it’s when demand spikes.
People arrive at work, open their laptops and start browsing.
Search volumes increase, airline pricing systems respond, and fares begin to rise. Then, package holiday prices follow the same pattern.
In simple terms, booking your summer break with your first coffee of the day is statistically one of the pricier moments to do it.
When is the cheapest hour to book?
At the other end of the scale, the cheapest time to book is consistently between 4am and 5am.
Overnight, demand drops off. Fewer searches mean less upward pressure on prices.
Airline systems effectively reset after the previous day’s activity, and fares often return closer to their baseline before building again through the morning.
It’s not a secret loophole. It’s simply supply and demand working in your favour while most of the country is asleep.
Is there a more realistic option?
Of course, most people are not setting alarms for 4am to book a holiday.
So I looked specifically at sociable hours.
If you are booking in the late evening, roughly 8pm to 10pm, prices were on average around 5 per cent cheaper than during the 9am to 10am rush for the same holiday.
Five per cent may not sound dramatic, but on a £2,000 family holiday that equates to around £100.
That is a tangible difference for many households – mine included.
When is the exact cheapest minute?
Out of curiosity, I pushed into the data further and examined booking times by the minute.
Consistently, the single cheapest minute recorded was 2:48am.
At that exact point, bookings were around 60 per cent cheaper than the most expensive time of day in the data sample.
Now – reality check time. Booking at 2:48am does not mean every holiday will magically be 60 per cent cheaper.
Pricing is influenced by many factors, including availability and route demand.
However, it illustrates just how wide the gap can be between peak and off-peak booking behaviour.
Testing it in real time
Data is one thing. I wanted to see it happen on screen. So I tested two different package holidays.
First, I checked Catty Cats Garden Hotel in Turkey at 2:47am. It was pricing at £133 per person.
Later that same morning, at 11:36am, the exact same hotel and dates were pricing from £165 per person.
That is roughly a 24 per cent increase in a few hours.
Then I repeated the test with a completely different deal – Mahdia Beach & Aqua Park in Tunisia.
At 2:48am, it was pricing from £130 per person. When I checked again at 11:46am, it had risen to £143 per person.
Again, same hotel, same dates. The only thing that changed was the time of day. Early hours versus late morning – identical searches but different prices.
It is a simple demonstration of how sensitive holiday pricing can be to demand levels throughout the day.
What this means for sunseekers
I want to be clear: I’m not encouraging everyone to live like an insomniac just to save a few pounds. But the broader trend is consistent.
Peak browsing hours tend to coincide with higher prices. Quieter periods – particularly early morning and late evening – often offer better value.
If you want a practical takeaway: avoid the 9am to 10am window if you can. Consider booking later in the evening instead.
And if you do happen to wake up at 4am and find yourself scrolling… it might be the most financially productive scroll of the week.
Holiday pricing is reactive, it responds to us.
So sometimes, saving money is not about finding a hidden code or waiting for a sale.
It is simply about stepping slightly outside the rush and pressing “book” when everyone else is still asleep.