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Summer 2026 Holiday Prices: Did Waiting Until the Last Minute Pay Off?

By Connor Martin · Published 9 Sep 2026 · For today's prices see our Club Med and Mark Warner pages.

Every summer, parents face the same gamble. Book in January and lock in a price, or wait and hope the operators cut prices to fill rooms. Most advice on this is anecdote. We have data: this summer we checked the price of every school-holiday week at Club Med and Mark Warner every morning, right up to departure.

The answer depends heavily on who you were booking with.

The short answer: at Mark Warner, waiting paid off in summer 2026. For 31 of the 33 school-holiday departures we tracked, the family price in the last days before departure was lower than in late June, by a median of 21% (about £1,270). At Club Med’s Mediterranean and North African resorts, waiting cost money: prices rose by a median of 24% from mid-May to departure, and a fifth of the weeks that were bookable in early summer had sold out for families by the final week.

What we tracked

• Mark Warner: four beach resorts (Paleros, Aeolian Village and Lemnos in Greece, Phokaia in Turkey). Seven nights, two adults and two children, including flights from Gatwick. Daily from 22 June 2026.
• Club Med: 21 sun resorts. Seven nights, two adults and two children aged 4-11, all-inclusive, without flights. Daily from 18 May 2026.
• The weeks: departures inside the English school summer holidays, late July to the end of August 2026.

We compared each departure’s first price with its last price before departure. These are the prices a family would have been quoted on those days for the lowest-priced available room.

Mark Warner: prices fell in the final weeks

Family of four, seven nights, including flights from Gatwick. Guidance only.

Across all 33 school-holiday departures:

• 31 of 33 were lower just before departure than when we first saw them.
• The median fall was 21%, or about £1,270 for the family.
• Against the highest price each week reached, the median gap was about £2,000.
• Most of the fall came in the final four to six weeks. Prices in late June and early July often went up first, before easing.

There were exceptions. Phokaia’s departure on 29 August rose from £4,473 to £6,455, and its 1 August departure ended slightly higher than it started. Waiting is never risk-free.

Club Med: Mediterranean prices rose and weeks sold out

Club Med’s short-haul sun resorts behaved in the opposite way:

Family of four, seven nights, all-inclusive, without flights. Change measured for weeks still available to book.

The biggest rises were at Bodrum (median +42%), Magna Marbella (+38%) and Da Balaia (+32%). For a family that is roughly £1,000 more on a typical week.

Availability is the other half of the story. About two-thirds of the Mediterranean school-holiday weeks could be booked for a family of four ten weeks out. By the final week before departure, fewer than half could, and about one in five of the weeks that were available in early summer had gone entirely.

Long-haul was calmer. Prices at Punta Cana (-19%), Michès Playa Esmeralda (-15%) and Cherating Beach (-12%) eased, and around three-quarters of long-haul weeks stayed bookable to the end.

Why the difference?

We can only see prices, not booking numbers, so this is our reading rather than a certainty:

• Club Med’s short-haul resorts are small, all-inclusive and very popular with families from across Europe in July and August. When rooms are scarce, prices climb and then weeks sell out.
• Mark Warner’s prices include flights, and its packages are built around its own seat allocations. Unsold seats and rooms close to departure have to be filled, and the prices we saw suggest Mark Warner cut them to do it.
• Long-haul summer is not peak season in the Caribbean or Indian Ocean, so there was less pressure on those resorts in July and August.

What this means for summer 2027

One summer is not a rule, and we will be watching to see whether 2027 repeats the pattern. But if it does:

1. Club Med in the Mediterranean: book early. Rising prices and disappearing weeks are a bad combination to gamble on. Check prices as soon as Club Med puts the summer 2027 school-holiday weeks on sale.
2. Mark Warner: there may be room to wait, if you are flexible. In 2026 the best prices came late. That suits a family that would be happy with any of several weeks or resorts, not one that needs a specific family room or flight time.
3. Watch the price either way. We now check summer 2027 for both operators every morning. Every school-holiday week is on our school holidays page, and we will email you if your week moves.

Related: Mark Warner summer 2027 prices: what the school holidays cost · Term-time fines vs school-holiday prices