4 Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets

Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets the Industry Did Not Want You to Know

The Four Top Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets

We ask Chris Lait, CEO of Sailchecker.com, industry yacht charter expert, for his top 4 Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets.

Our view of last minute yacht charter in general, it that it’s much tougher to get the right deal. As you would expect, the best boats do charter first, so if your plans to get sailing are last minute, then there are some things to consider.

Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets

One way to hack the last minute yacht charter market is to know and understand how boats come to the market at this stage, and to consider why a boat is offered at the price it is.

Last Minute Yacht Charter Secrets

1. Last Minute Yacht Charter Secret - Avoiding the Sharks

Beware of the Sharks. When trying to plunder the last minute market, it’s a good idea to have your wits about you, there are a few sharp practices out there.

One of them such practice is employed on boats operators know will always sell at certain times of the year. Let’s say a Lagoon 450 Catamaran offered as a Last Minute Yacht Charter in Croatia in mid-August. There is little doubt this boat could have been sold well in advance. To increase profits, some less scrupulous operators hold back stock, inflate the price, and appear to be offering the only stock, and seemingly at a last minute discount.

How to Avoid the Sharks. An experienced agent will know which companies employ these practices. Not only do we not like them, we tend to find that their service standards are lower on average. Where we can – we will steer you clear of these, or we can use our understanding to negotiate an even higher discount than even if you had gone direct to them.

2. Last Minute Yacht Charter Secret - New Boats to Market

New Boats to Market. This is one of our favourite tips. Yachts are acquired and introduced to fleets at all times of the year. Operators cannot always know when a boat will actually arrive, delays on the shipbuilders production lines are systemic. For that reason, great new boats can appear at any moment – but here’s the difficult bit – these won’t always appear in search listings.

The fail to appear because it takes time for the management software to catch-up. There is often due-diligence that needs to be done before they can be properly listed.

How to I Grab a New Boat. You will need the budget, yet ofter new boats are well priced as operators are keen to get off to a good start, but how do you find out about them and land Last Minute Yacht Charter that will be the envy of those booking early.

Well it’s a risk. Yet here at SailChecker, we do track new boats to market for this very reasons. We want our customers to be first to sail on the best boats, whether in advance, or pick up that dream last minute bargain.

3. Last Minute Yacht Charter Secret - Big Market Shifts

A Big Market Shift. This kind of shift, is know in the industry, as a “Steamer”, and is a big secret. After all – who wants the world to know you got your pricing wrong! Yet here at SailChecker, we want to disrupt that secrecy and make the marketplace more transparent and easy to navigate.

A significant shift in a last minute yacht charter price can be an indicator the boat was over-priced in the first place. This can result in a great deal as operators rush to ensure  the boat is chartered as the void approaches.

How to Find a Shift in Price. One way of course, is to trawl through boat prices over a significant period of time. For the majority, even us here at SailChecker, that’s not really an option, even if the result is an amazing last minute yacht charter deal. Once we noticed the trend, we quickly employed some cleaver Artificial Intelligence (AI) to trawl through all the date looking for these patterns that indicate great deals, particularly at the last minute.

4. Last Minute Yacht Charter Secret - Cancellations.

Last Minute Cancellations. As we mentioned at the top of the article, it’s really important know how things work, like the new boats being slow onto the global systems. Another areas slow to react, is cancellations. The systems out there don’t handle them well, so it’s highly unlikely you will find them in listing.

Cancellations always happen 6-8 weeks before the charter date, this is when the second payment is paid, and often the moment parties pull the plug. So if you are looking for a Last Minute Yacht Charter two months in advance, this could be a great way to bag a deal.

How to Get a Last Minute Yacht Charter Cancellation. Here at Sailchecker, we again use propriety Artificial Intelligence (AI) to look for the signs a charter is being cancelled. It’s not 100% accurate, yet it enables our experienced consultants to start searching for that perfect Last Minute Yacht Charter.

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