spareholidays

How Much Do You Actually Save Buying a Resold Trip?

By SpareHolidays, Editorial team

There is no standard discount, and any site quoting you one is guessing. What there is instead is a comparison you can run yourself in about two minutes, and it beats every headline percentage.

See our pricingUnwanted holidays for sale

What is the typical saving on a resold trip?

There is no typical saving that survives contact with a specific booking. The saving on the trip in front of you is its total price plus any transfer fee, measured against booking the identical trip today.

We do not publish a typical saving, because we do not have a figure that would survive scrutiny. Listings vary too much for an average to describe the one you are looking at, and 'cheaper' has no fixed answer without naming what it is measured against.

So ignore any percentage quoted on a listing itself, including one presented as a discount off an original price, and run the comparison against today's price for the identical trip.

What actually drives how big the discount is?

Four things, and only one of them is about the trip. The other three are about the seller's position and the supplier's rules, which is why two identical holidays can be listed at very different prices on the same day.

easyJet charges 60 pounds per passenger per flight to change a name online and 65 through customer services, with both closing 2 hours before departure and airport changes possible later. Changing the name and reselling the ticket are two different things in its terms: the name change is permitted and priced, while the same section states you cannot resell your ticket and reserves the right to cancel a booking without a refund where easyJet reasonably believes it was resold or made available for resale, including through an online marketplace.Source: easyJet — easyJet fees and charges (checked 2026-08-30)Source: easyJet — easyJet Terms and Conditions, Passenger changes (checked 2026-08-31)

  • Time to departure: a seller months out can wait for a better offer; one with days left cannot and prices accordingly.
  • Transferability: a booking whose supplier changes names cheaply is worth more than an identical one whose supplier does not.
  • The transfer fee itself, which on some carriers exceeds what a promotional fare originally cost.
  • How specific the booking is, because fixed dates and a fixed airport suit fewer buyers, and narrower demand means a lower price.

Which comparison actually tells me if it is worth buying?

Take the total on the listing, add the supplier's fee at the rate it actually charges, then price the identical trip fresh today — same dates, same airports, same room type.

Ryanair charges 115 euros or pounds per passenger to change a name online and 160 through its contact centre or an airport desk. The online route closes 24 hours before departure; the assisted route stays open until 2 hours before.Source: Ryanair — Ryanair help centre — changing passenger details and the table of fees (checked 2026-08-29)

Count a per-passenger, per-flight fee properly for the whole party and the whole itinerary, and run the fresh price in a private browser window so a cached search does not flatter either side.

Write both totals down rather than holding them in your head. If the resold total is not clearly lower, stop: a narrow margin means taking on process risk for almost nothing.

When is a big discount not actually a saving?

When the trip is not one you would otherwise have chosen. The dates have to be dates you wanted, the airport one you would have flown from, and the room type one you would have booked.

A trip bought purely because it was cheap tends to cost more overall once the awkward connection, the extra night or the longer transfer is paid for.

Judge the listing as a trip first and a bargain second. That single reordering removes most of the regret in this category.

Questions buyers ask

Are last-minute resold trips cheaper than earlier ones?

Usually yes, and usually riskier for the same reason: a seller running out of time has weak bargaining power, and the supplier's change window is closest to shutting.

Whether that is good value depends entirely on what you lose if the transfer does not clear. If the answer is a holiday you booked time off for, the discount is not paying for the risk.

Set your own floor before you start looking — how much cheaper a late listing has to be for you to accept it. Deciding in advance stops the discount doing the deciding.

Does the buyer fee cancel out the saving?

It should not on a well-priced listing, but include it rather than assuming. The fee is shown on the listing before you purchase, and the pricing page sets out the current tiers.

The same applies to the supplier's transfer fee, which is separate from ours and often larger. Both belong in the total before any comparison means anything.

A listing that only wins before fees has not won anything.

Can I negotiate the price down on a resold trip?

Yes. Every listing shows an asking price you can buy at directly, and you can also make an offer the seller can accept or decline.

Negotiation is worth more the further you are from departure, because the seller still has time to wait. Close to the date the position reverses and the asking price is often already their floor.

Make the offer with a reason attached, such as a fresh price you have found for the same dates. Sellers here are generally realistic, and an offer showing you have done the comparison lands better than a round number.

Related pages

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