Sky-High Prices for London > Cancun Flights - October 2026

Hi guys,

We have a hotel booked in Mexico next October during the new Surrey 2 week half-term. I'd been monitoring BA flights prices for London to Cancun the past 18 months to identify the best slot outside of term time to travel, and it seemed our best chance to do an affordable holiday of a lifetime with our 2 kids (9 & 7 years old).

From research I understood we'd be looking at something between £2400 and £2800 for the 4 of us, with Economy + cabin baggage. The flight for our dates started to become available around 10 days ago. The outbound flight (19th October) was looking good price-wise, but I had to wait for our return date (29th Oct) to become available to book, Unfortunately, despite being online at 5am, the flight prices for any October half term dates had shot up to £4450 return for the 4 of us. This is much higher than I've ever seen for any other dates in the past, including Summer Holidays and May half term. We cannot afford this cost - and I'm just thankful we booked a hotel offering full refund on cancellation.

For those of your familiar with BA pricing behaviour, does this seem unusually high? Could the prices drop nearer the time? I'm probably clutching at straws but it feels like cancellation is inevitable ...