Get ready: flights bookable soon for the 4-day 2022 Jubilee Bank Holiday

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To celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, the Government has undertaken a big shake-up of the late May Bank Holiday.

Whilst this is still 55 weeks away, it is worth mentioning now because Avios seats for this period will be bookable next month.

If you want a 4-day short break without having to take any time off work, you should start planning now and be ready to book Avios flights as soon as they are available, 355 days in advance.

What is happening for the June 2022 Jubilee Bank Holiday?

The Government is planning a 4-day “blockbuster weekend of celebrations” to celebrate The Queen’s 70 year reign.

If you’d rather poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick, or simply don’t trust any event organised by the Govenment to be worth attending, it is a great opportunity for a short break abroad.

This is what is happening:

the second May Bank Holiday will be moved from a Monday to Thursday 2nd June

an additional Bank Holiday will be created on Friday 3rd June

This allows you to book a holiday from 2nd to 5th June without requiring any time off work, assuming you have a traditional Monday to Friday work pattern.

I want to flag one potential issue. Sunday 5th June, as well as being the last day of the Jubilee weekend, is also the last day of half term for many families. You will be competing with them for return flights. It may make more sense to take one day off work, have a five day holiday and return on Monday 6th June.

When to book

With Avios tickets bookable 355 days in advance, seats should open up on 12th June. It gives you just under a month to make plans.

I suspect that it will be an exceptionally heavy weekend for leisure travel so I would look to book sooner rather than later, remembering that Avios tickets can always be cancelled for a £35 per person fee.

Think twice before booking any non-refundable hotel rooms, however. There is a 23.37% chance that Her Majesty will not celebrate her Platinum Jubilee. In such a case, the extra Bank Holiday could be cancelled with the standard one moved back to its usual spot of Monday 30th May.

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

gareth says:

18 May18 May 05:27

In order to secure seats to some destinations I’m guessing it’s best to book outbound and inbound separate. Never done this before. Can you combine after booking online? Guessing if you can’t and cancel then that’s a £35 charge per leg
- Anna says:
  
  18 May18 May 06:22
  
  For the last few years BA CSAs have refused to link bookings for me but I think other people may have had success with more accommodating agents. They should recalculate the surcharges on destinations where you end up paying more for booking separately. With RFS this doesn’t apply, obviously. I suppose it depends how many bookings you’re likely to cancel!
  - Gareth says:
    
    18 May18 May 06:36
    
    Thanks Anna
  - Genghis says:
    
    18 May18 May 06:49
    
    “ With RFS this doesn’t apply, obviously”
    Oh but it would. Some return legs are charged less than the RFS cap.
    - meta says:
      
      18 May18 May 07:00
      
      @Genghis this has changed a few years ago. Now all European destinations cost the same under RFS.
      - Genghis says:
        
        18 May18 May 07:18
        
        Ah. Thanks. Need to update my knowledge!
      - Tracey says:
        
        18 May18 May 07:38
        
        I paid 50p for GIB last Summer.
      - meta says:
        
        18 May18 May 09:44
        
        @Tracey this is the new pricing system where you can get tickets for £1, but you pay more in Avios.
    - Lady London says:
      
      18 May18 May 12:55
      
      On On Business tickets this is still the case
  - Chris Heyes says:
    
    18 May18 May 07:01
    
    Anna Don’t see why ? they refuse to link bookings unless your doing something wrong ?
    When i ring up to book outbound early morning around 7am ish
    I Tell them this is a outbound flight, inbound not available for a few weeks
    Will ring back when it becomes available.
    But please make a note on your system it requires linking
    Never had a problem ?
    - Anna says:
      
      18 May18 May 07:16
      
      I don’t see why, either Chris, all I can tell you is that whenever I’ve asked to link a booking when having the avios/taxes adjusted, the CSA has refused. This didn’t used to be the cae. I might just be unlucky, though.
    - pauldb says:
      
      18 May18 May 07:30
      
      But are you ringing to add the inbound (at midnight), or are you booking the inbound at midnight as a single and then calling in the morning to combine? Anna seems to be talking about the latter which I believe is no longer possible.
      - Rob says:
        
        18 May18 May 07:32
        
        1am during British Summer Time …
      - Dave says:
        
        18 May18 May 07:41
        
        Is that really no longer possible?! It’s been my preferred way of doing it for a while and I hadn’t read BA had stopped it.
        
        Rob/Rhys – is this true?
      - Rob says:
        
        18 May18 May 09:00
        
        Not heard anything
      - Hugh says:
        
        18 May18 May 08:24
        
        I did this about a month ago without any problem.
      - Chris Heyes says:
        
        18 May18 May 10:34
        
        pauldb In my case I’m ringing to book outbound in the morning around 7am ish
        reminding CS to place on system that I’ll be booking return when it becomes available ?
        Again in my case ringing around 7am ish to book inbound and have it linked
        Always no problem
        I Should add always off peak flights so not had a need to ring at 1am
        Also very flexible as away 3/4 weeks at a time so day or two later or before no problem for us
        Although I think Anna might be ringing at 1am but that shouldn’t make a difference same principle ?
        The time rung or person contacted shouldn’t matter ?
      - Anna says:
        
        18 May18 May 11:15
        
        No – every time I have booked my return leg on a 241 online at 12/1 am and then called the next morning to have half the avios refunded, they will refund the avios but not link the bookings, so both legs remain separate.
      - pauldb says:
        
        18 May18 May 17:52
        
        The distinction is that Chris you are simply adding inbound flights to the booking. That remains possible.
        Anna is making a separate booking for the inbound then attempting to merge the two – used to be possible but no longer (of course she could gamble cancelling the inbound).
        So there is no agent inconsistency here.
Beardless Hipster says:

18 May18 May 06:17

What if she dies by then?
- Matt says:
  
  18 May18 May 06:21
  
  That’s the 23% chance he mentions near the end.
  - Anna says:
    
    18 May18 May 06:23
    
    Henry VIII made it treasonable to allude to the death of a monarch – I wonder if that was ever officially repealed?!!
  - WaynedP says:
    
    18 May18 May 07:01
    
    Only tongue-in-cheek, I understand, but accurately predicting an individual’s mortality is all but impossible on this basis.
    
    Actuarial tables work on the law of large numbers and can’t be applied to individuals, not even post code differentiated mortality.
    
    Travel analogy might be analysing several years of plane departure data. That might give you probability of how many total technical- or weather-related plane departure delays to expect over the next year at any particular UK airport, but impossible to predict what day any specific incident will occur.
  - Rich says:
    
    18 May18 May 08:36
    
    But the 23% doesn’t take into account the additional stress being caused by the ginger whinger Stateside lol
    - Catalan says:
      
      18 May18 May 10:06
      
      ..no greater that the stress being caused by the other prince who is wanted by Stateside authorities!
      - Bazza says:
        
        18 May18 May 11:09
        
        Who and what is that exactly?
      - J says:
        
        18 May18 May 12:43
        
        Think it’s some bloke who didn’t used to sweat, but now does, and who likes to play dress up, pretending to be an Admiral.
      - ChrisC says:
        
        18 May18 May 23:05
        
        He isn’t wanted.
        
        They would like to ask him some questtions which isn’t the same thing as being wanted. There isn’t a warrant out for his arrest for example.
        
        And he has said he is willing to talk to the FBI. Except the FBI never seem to get around to getting their lawyers to talk to his lawyers to arrange for it to happen.
- Chris Heyes says:
  
  18 May18 May 07:02
  
  have 2 weeks off lol
Andrew says:

18 May18 May 06:26

And it’s a gamble on booking to a country that by then is on the red list.
- meta says:
  
  18 May18 May 07:01
  
  Not if you book refundable!
  - Andrew says:
    
    18 May18 May 07:20
    
    But you’re back to square one with no holiday booked.
    - meta says:
      
      18 May18 May 09:45
      
      That’s why any savvy traveller these days will have several options booked…
Yorkieflyer says:

18 May18 May 07:21

Already booked this week off with EasyJet ages ago 😀
- bill says:
  
  18 May18 May 08:37
  
  Same !
- Harry T says:
  
  18 May18 May 08:46
  
  I’ve moved some Edinburgh-Milan flights from 2020 to be Manchester-Prague in June 2022 😂
- Jody says:
  
  18 May18 May 09:37
  
  Yep, we moved EasyJet flights to this period, got 10 days in Majorca!
James Pleasant says:

18 May18 May 07:51

23.37% is understating it. She’s 95.1 yrs old at the moment (b.April 21, 1926). There’s 1.1 yrs to go until the Jubilee celebrations.

Odds (women) aged 95 surviving 1 yr = 26.76%. You’d have to increase this by about 10%, so the accurate figure is about 29%.
- Genghis says:
  
  18 May18 May 08:59
  
  Does the Queen have the same chance of surviving as a “normal” 95 year old woman? I’m thinking better access to healthcare, no problems paying the gas bill over winter etc etc
  - James Pleasant says:
    
    18 May18 May 09:18
    
    I think the odds of her sending herself a telegram are very high for those reasons + she looks in excellent health for her age. Plus life will be a lot less stressful when she passes on the baton – probably soon after the tree-bilee. You heard it here first.
    - AJA says:
      
      18 May18 May 09:58
      
      Plus her mother lived until 102 so chances are she will too. OTOH if she doesn’t there will be a state funeral which should be somewhat bigger than Phil’s last month – Covid-19 resurgence notwithstanding.
      - Alex Sm says:
        
        18 May18 May 12:28
        
        Did her mom forge her birth certificate for some reason? Official sources say she was 101 years old when she died
  - J says:
    
    18 May18 May 09:19
    
    And, presumably, one of the world’s best trained immune systems given the huge number of people she’s had a face to face with.
- ken says:
  
  18 May18 May 11:42
  
  I don’t think accurate is quite the word.
  
  At that age, general physical & cognitive health trump most things.
  
  Example.
  A woman aged 93 has roughly an 11% chance of making her 100 year birthday.
  If they can get up without use of hands (from a chair) and has normal cognition (on MMSE scale) then the odds rocket past 30%.
  
  As the Queen was still riding (6 months ago) and seems fairly on the ball, I’d be giving her a lot better chance than 71% of making the bank holiday.
Mikeact says:

18 May18 May 08:16

@tracey….50p ..very expensive waste of Avios.
Paul says:

18 May18 May 08:48

How far out can you book IHG reward nights? Is it only 11 months?
- meta says:
  
  18 May18 May 09:47
  
  11 months and 15 days. Currently booking window extends to the night of 2-3 May 2022.
Michael Sullivan says:

18 May18 May 09:55

Tasteless final paragraph.
- Sandra says:
  
  18 May18 May 10:11
  
  But true, we all have to be realistic and face our mortality at some point!
- Benilyn says:
  
  18 May18 May 10:34
  
  shall we cancel Rob? (joking)
- Rob says:
  
  18 May18 May 11:03
  
  No, it is a realistic discussion of what may happen and which could cause you to lose a lot of money (or two days holiday allowance) if not properly considered.
  - Alex Sm says:
    
    18 May18 May 12:30
    
    But these things are announced a long time in advance for planning purposes and can’t be reversed after some point. Do we know when this point of no return date is? It looks like the long weekend will still go ahead but if necessary could be rebranded as Commemorative Weekend or similar
    - Memesweeper says:
      
      18 May18 May 13:09
      
      ‘Do we know when this point of no return date is?’ If the monarch dies you can be sure all previous promises of days off will be null and void.
- cinereus says:
  
  18 May18 May 13:04
  
  Get over it.