When is the best time to book a stag do?

We know life can be busy, and booking a weekend away can be a lot of admin. When it comes to booking a stag do, you want the best price possible, for maximum enjoyment. It’s sometimes difficult to be coordinate your weekend a long time in advance, particularly when you have a large group of people to organise, however, booking early is a significant benefit.

At The Stag Company, we have completed a little research to give you guys some pointers on when to book to get the best deal financially and also to ensure you have your stag do the way you want it, partaking in activities that you wish to do.

We have seen a consistency in late bookings with stag groups, which we understand is often much more of a convenient way of organising. However, like anything, it is better to book in advance, particularly if you are looking to travel abroad.

This way, you and the lads will benefit from the cheapest rates, and you’ll have ample time to save up pennies for your beery, boozy nights. Popular UK destinations and activities also suffer from becoming heavily booked up in popular times. It is not uncommon that venues will increase their prices in busy times, so booking early is a means of guaranteeing availability and it’s cost-effective.  

A common controversy with stag parties, that may impede booking prematurely, is the concern that there will be a frequent change in your group quantity, usually people jump on board at a later date, or some decide they can’t make it! For those of you travelling abroad, it’s a little more difficult and we know you don’t want to be faffing around with name changes.

However, if unfortunately, this does occur, most airlines will allow the name change on a flight, with an admin fee applied. Easy Jet, for example, charge £49 for an online name change, 60 days or more before you travel, a hefty jump from £15 it used to be a few years back. If you’re concerned about changing your group capacity for activities, our suppliers are normally happy to accommodate this change, and you may only have to pay a small fee.

Secondly, when booking early, you guys may feel the weighty burden of having to gather the funds together, quickly. This is why The Stag Company has created a part-payment scheme, which is optional. This means you can pay in installments that suit you and the rest of group, so no one is excluded and the weekend will generally be much more affordable.

These monthly payments can be arranged for your pay day, so a set amount goes out each month based on your budget, rather than you having to fork out the total amount in one hit.

You’ll reap the benefits of this when it comes to the big weekend. As you’ll be able to book the hotel you want, and the activities you want without worrying about availability. You’ll have more time to save some extra money for those boozy nights, wherever you decide to go. 

When have the majority of our previous stags booked their weekend? 

Whether you’re going abroad or you’re staying in the glorious UK, it’s advised that you book early! Our greatest influx of bookings occurs in January, February and March. Often, stags have decided to book trips abroad even further in advance, to guarantee their initial preference of hotel, activity and destination. The earlier you book, the less you’ll suffer with unavailability and large groups of holiday goers stealing your slots!

The earlier you book, the more time you and your mates will have to govern the funds for the holiday too!

If, however, you feel that booking a stag do early is simply unfeasible, it shouldn’t be a concern.  As mentioned previously, our trained party planners often have to manage an inflow of late bookings.  The chances are, you will still be able to partake in the activities and fly to the destinations you originally wished to go to, it’s just recommended to book early, so you and lads can reap some of the financial benefits as well booking your first choice of destination, activity, accommodation or flights!

January accounts for 20% of all stag bookings for the entire year, a hefty number highlighting how big a month it is for the travel industry. While April used to be significantly lower, the growth in last minute stag do bookings has seen it become a pivotal month for groups.

How Far In Advance Should You Book A Stag Do depends on how quickly you can get the group together, but we recommend putting in your booking a good 6 months in advance, which means you should be planning around 9 months beforehand.

The planning will involve forming a list with the groom, gathering contact details, working out a potential destination and what activity the groom would love to do.

When in the past have we had the least amount of bookings for stag do’s?

We do cater for a deluge of late bookings throughout the year with you lads, but generally speaking, most book at the beginning of the year to obtain the benefits of early bookings. We don’t have as many bookings in the Autumn and Winter periods.

It is obvious that businesses similar to ours are quiet in the winter months, particularly when Christmas is fast approaching. We take bookings throughout the year so it is not abnormal to book at this time, if anything we encourage it as our party planners are less inundated!

This is also why we often offer deals in the final 3-4 months of the year, so keep an eye out if you're early and prepared.

Is booking relative to the location in which you are travelling to?

Many holiday destinations have periods of time when they offer cheap flights, so this is something you need to look out for if you are looking to leave our British shores! 

If you haven’t decided to travel abroad, then some destinations are more popular to the masses than others, for example Brighton and Bournemouth have large quantities of people flocking to the shores in the sunnier months. 

So if this is something you are looking to do, it may be necessary to get a little more organised. Major cities such as London and Manchester are a little more consistent throughout the year and are not dependent on seasonal bookings.  

If you’re booking an EU destination outside the summer time, don’t be complacent and remember that the weather will obviously be colder and also, if it is nightlife that you are travelling for, remember that it won’t be as thriving as it will be in the middle of summer when the cities are overflowing with boozy tourists.

When is the cheapest time to bag a bargain and book a flight?

You have to be on the ball if you want to bag a cheap flight. The best thing to do, is get prepared. Know where you want to go and what month you are looking to go in. Then go to your preferred airlines websites and sign up to receiving their emails.  You can get them to send you information about batches of flights. If you do this with more than one airline company, then you can price compare and will be sure to bag yourself a bargain.

To all of you lads, who are refusing to shake your last-minute booking ways… you can also sign up to newsletters on the airlines’ websites. Signing up will allow them to send you various offers throughout the year, including offers available in peak times, so even if you know where you're going for a last minute stag do, but it’s not yet booked, you may still be able to get a cheap flight!

Another little pointer, is that cheap, outbound flights commonly occur on Tuesday afternoons! So if you’re not bothered about travelling on a weekday, then this could be a means of saving some pennies.

Can you get any offers with us?

We provide offers for some key holiday dates within the year, for example Easter, St Patrick's Day and Christmas.

If you aren’t bothered about following the sun on your bachelor party, then an Amsterdam stag do for example, is a popular destination and is very lively in winter months!

We would recommend speaking to our party planners and asking if there are any offers on at the time, we may be running a special offer or have one in the pipeline that is about to go live.

Does the quantity of people affect when it’s best to book?

We know that group sizes invariably change throughout the booking, particularly with you lads. We have solid relationships with our suppliers, so the majority of the venues and activities we offer are flexible to people quantity changes. Our party planners are happy to do the admin for you too!

Many of the adrenaline junkie activities that you guys partake in get heavily booked up as they are very popular and don’t just appeal to stag groups. If you have a specific activity in mind, then make sure you are prepared to book in advance. If you don’t manage to book early, compromises will have to be made, for example, sharing the Go-kart track, instead of having it exclusively to your group.

Should we prioritise anything first, when booking?

Flights and accommodation should be prioritised if you are going abroad, largely because they get booked up, but the earlier you book, the more money you could save. We can arrange the stag accommodation for you, which is key as many hotels won't accept big groups of lads.

Use your common sense, don’t go booking an activity in Bratislava and then realise that you’re unable to attend because you can’t find accommodation and there are no flights available.

Why do groups hesitate when booking in advance?

When booking long in advance for destinations abroad, people are concerned about committing to the holiday until they know that flights have been released and that they are affordable.

We also feel that, particularly if the group has a varying age range, then people are concerned about paying in one go – which is why we decided to provide our customers with the option of payment installments. This means that, if some are concerned about being able to afford the trip, it's less of an upfront requirement, with just a £50 deposit.