Cheaper Flights?

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

Has anyone noticed how "cheap" flights are at the moment...all relative but in comparison to previous years...

 

My father in law just phoned with a request that we book him a flight here for January for a few weeks. Return flights can be purchased from Manchester for less than $1600 on Singapore airlines.

 

It's even cheaper and possible to fly from Leeds / Bradford on Emirates, Qatar etc at around $1500 for the same dates.

 

Compare this with prices of $2000 to $2500 a few years ago and it's much cheaper to fly at present (British exchange rate being the only down side due to Brexit).

[snifter]

Yeah, its interesting to see. It might be its the October deals and the prices will creep back up?

 

We are looking at another trip to the UK next (Aus) winter but tend not to book flights so early. Usually book 4, at most 5 months ahead. Means we may miss out on the cheaper tickets but I don't like to commit to a trip so far ahead. Plus we fly into Heathrow so not sure we'd get much savings wise.

 

I can't recall if there is a similar cheap flight sale deal in the UK as there is here each October. I just remember bargains could always be found year round, depending on where you wanted to head to or if you were not too fussy with the location. Plus companies like Easy Jet and the real cheapies made travel to Europe more accessible. The down side of those cheap flights was the location some of the airports were in. Fly to 'Paris' could mean you were actually flying to a small airport that required a fair old train ride to actually get to Paris. Or had to fly from Stanstead which was always a pain to get too. Thankfully over the years they rolled out to more UK airports so made life easier at the departing end.

[soo_the_panda]

Yes, at the weekend we booked flights Adelaide - Heathrow return for next August, $1515 per adult on Emirates. Price was consistent for almost every day in August, with Friday night being $40 or so more. Very pleased with those! Qatar prices were comparable, but we opted for Emirates for a lunchtime departure out of London - Qatar leave much earlier which would require a pre-dawn wake up to travel to Heathrow.

[snifter]

I've been looking over flights for next year and tbh while the prices may be a bit cheaper the travel times or routes on lots of them are are horrible, at least for me. I don't want a 30hr plus travel time being stuck in an airport for 8-10 hours waiting for my connection. I also don't really want to have to get a connecting flight through another Aus airport either. It doesn't appeal to have to travel to Bris or Sydney before actually getting going on the long leg. Melbourne is ok to a point.

 

I don't like Dubai/Doha as a route, prefer the short leg on a 777 and the long leg on the A380 and via Dubai you get the 777 for the 14 hour flight.

 

If I booked now for the cheapest flights going, China Southern with 2 stops, one in China, the other in Amsterdam, NL before arriving at Heathrow I'd be looking at about $2,900. But I'd have a travel time of 31.5 hours going and 39 hours plus on the return. Assuming both changes are not delayed. Thats a long trip to do on your own, factoring in a kid flying too, I'd not want to be spending 40 hours almost from start of journey to end. Taking into account that doesn't include travel time to airport, check in time being 2-3 hours ahead and all that, I'd be

 

What it would be however is about $1,000 less than we paid for flights last year. We flew Emirates via Dubai then. Emirates atm is coming in at $3,200 with a crazy 39 hr return leg. So about $700 difference for the 2 of us but pretty horrible journey times. Qatar has a 34 hour return journey time for about the same price

 

Am weighing it all up. TBH I'd rather not use my holiday to visit the UK next year (I'm very over the UK atm) and am hoping I can persuade my parents to visit us instead. But if they can't for some reason, then I guess we will be UK bound and I'll have to fork out.

[snifter]

I did lots of looking and comparing last night and tbh, flying to Manchester or further north means then travelling south again on the train or hiring a car and having a longer drive than we would have flying into Heathrow. Plus the cost of the train is lots and how the heck I'd manage the bags on it I don't know.

 

I'm going to have to stick with Heathrow and find a bearable route and be prepared to pay that bit extra for it.

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

The Manchester option works ok if you are üp north"! We flew in to Manchester earlier this year and then drove across to Leeds.

Leeds/ Bradford would have been a better option but it wasn't cost effective and car hire options were better in Manchester.

 

I have just booked 2 return flights...January to Feb on Singapore airlines. Play around with dates and options if you can.

I managed to get the flights from Manchester to Adelaide for 700 pounds which was amazing value. Surprising too as there were very few seats available on the planes.

[snifter]

I found cheap flights for next week when I looked the other day but honestly, I can't just go at the drop of a hat like that. Work, school and so on all need planning around. I don't mind going in term time but its not great giving work such short notice.

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

I know what you mean. Wouldn't it be great just be to able to fly around the specials and not be constrained by work and other commitments.

 

The flights that I booked were both for retired people and their dates were flexible.

 

It may be possible for migrants moving here to structure the move around cheaper flight too and save some money on the trip....

[snifter]

Well, I've booked for 2 of us to make a 17 day trip to the UK in March next year. A day or two lost to travel so actually 15 days in the UK. But that is more than enough for me. 10 days there last time I was ready to leave and I still had another 12 or so till we were due to return to Aus. So this time 15 days seems much better, shorter and not so long to wait for the trip to come round

 

And for $2400 or so for myself and my son. 30kg baggage each and only a 3 hour wait for our connecting flights each way and flying into Heathrow.

[PatP]

I must admit when we did the first Newcastle - Dubai- Adelaide flight it seemed a breeze looking at only a couple of hours stopover etc

having done it 3 or 4 times we decided it wasn't for us as we barely y had time to go to the loo between flights People said to stop over which we looked at but the flight times out of Dubai were not good ie in the middle of the night so we would have been up at all hours to catch flights

last time time we flew to Heathrow late night flight out with Singapore airlines ,few days in Singapore then on to Adelaide all with good flight times etc Bonus was Heathrow to Singapore flight was almost empty hubby had 4 seats I had 3 and stretched out have not been able to do that in years !

Everyone is different and what we used to do when we were younger ie just put up with it no longer gels when you can't move after sitting for some 20 odd hours lll

[John Browning]

-Yes, Philly, just can't understand why anyone making the trip to / from UK wouldn't chose a break somewhere on route....a couple of days in places such as Malaysia (-or most places for that matter) usually turns out to be really cheap when you add everything up.

And it's so much better for your health to intentionally keep the flights down to 12 hours (-I know two really quite fit people who have developed DVT's on longer flights)

 

JB

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

-Yes, Philly, just can't understand why anyone making the trip to / from UK wouldn't chose a break somewhere on route....a couple of days in places such as Malaysia (-or most places for that matter) usually turns out to be really cheap when you add everything up.

And it's so much better for your health to intentionally keep the flights down to 12 hours (-I know two really quite fit people who have developed DVT's on longer flights)

 

JB

 

That's a really good point.

 

An interesting point regarding travel insurance that is worth mentioning. Both of my travellers are in their 70's and they want to take out insurance. When they transit through Singapore they are covered on their insurance as long as they remain in the airport. However, they have a long stop over and are going to take in the city tour that's arranged from the airport. They would not have been covered for this trip (just a few hours) unless it had specifically been declared as a stop over on their insurance....and a increase in price. All you need is an incident on this tour and they could have resulted in not been covered under their insurance.

 

Make full declarations or insurance companies will decline payments / cover.