NEED HELP! Planning a trip to Asia/Austrailia on the cheap!

rooney005

Hi all,

My close friend now lives in Austrailia and has asked me to be his best man at his wedding in Sydney.

Hes getting married in August (not great weather in Sydney) so I want to plan a trip to Sydney for a week and then onto a hoter destination like Bali or Thailand for one or two weeks before flying back to the UK.

Does anyone have any experience of planning these types of trips of know of a reputable travel agent that could assist as we woul want to keep the costs as low as possible.

p.s we will do the whole OZ tour another time...

Hope someone can help!!

Cheers
Cam

richardw

http://www.airasia.com/gb/en/home.html

lynzpower

Have you played around with kayak.co.uk for example.

Personally I like and recommend flight centre, as they will beat any price even by just a pound.

zagfles

Basically the flights should be the only major cost - Thailand is cheap for accomodation, so is Australia. Packages tend to be expensive so would suggest you DIY.

Have you considered stopping off in northern Australia on the way - weather may not be good in Syndey but it's ideal in the north at that time of year (dry season, no jellyfish danger, and it'll be quite hot but not too hot). A trip to the barrier reef and/or Kakadu maybe? Locally organised trips are very good value (or at least were when we went 10 years ago). Just if you thinking of doing a whole OZ tour another time bear in mind that when the weather is good in Sydney it will be horrible in the North - friend of mine made the mistake of going there in January....constant heavy rain and too dangerous to go in the sea...

TakeThis

zagfles wrote: »

Basically the flights should be the only major cost - Thailand is cheap for accomodation, so is Australia. Packages tend to be expensive so would suggest you DIY.

Have you considered stopping off in northern Australia on the way - weather may not be good in Syndey but it's ideal in the north at that time of year (dry season, no jellyfish danger, and it'll be quite hot but not too hot). A trip to the barrier reef and/or Kakadu maybe? Locally organised trips are very good value (or at least were when we went 10 years ago). Just if you thinking of doing a whole OZ tour another time bear in mind that when the weather is good in Sydney it will be horrible in the North - friend of mine made the mistake of going there in January....constant heavy rain and too dangerous to go in the sea...

Some examples to cover that statement would be nice.

MrWillyWonka

Having just returned from travelling for a year in Asia, Australia and NZ I can say that Australia isn't cheap, it is more expensive than the UK but accommodation prices are reasonable.

Flight Centre do good deals but look around, also check out STA travel as their flights are good and you can change the flight date for just £35 (if you ever needed to). Air Asia fly from London, stopping in Kuala Lumpur and they can be cheap, Air Asia within Asia is ridiculously cheap. Cheap flights to/within Australia tend to come from JetStar and Virgin Blue (both fly to Bali and onwards to Singapore/Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur in which you can take another flight home).

Bali is a wonderful place but it is also big and varied, for the life and surfing you want to go Kuta which isn't far from Denpasar (the international airport).

Use topcashback or quidco to save some money if booking online.

This is just a brief rundown but hope this helps!

cundall

I would book a flight to SE Asia via Skyscanner and then sign up to tigerairways and airasia's emails and book your flight to Oz when they are on offer...

Been some really good deals to SE Asia in the last month...

Prices have gone up but the cheapest open jaw ticket to Manila (where i fly to is) £433 (up from £350!) http://d.pr/6lQP

If you can get over to say KL, BKK, HKG, SIN, MNL, CRK, CEB etc then you can fly over to OZ cheaply if you get a promo fair...

Remember that Singapore airlines have a new LCC who should be flying to oz and they will have promo fairs...

zagfles

MrWillyWonka wrote: »

Having just returned from travelling for a year in Asia, Australia and NZ I can say that Australia isn't cheap, it is more expensive than the UK but accommodation prices are reasonable.

Flight Centre do good deals but look around, also check out STA travel as their flights are good and you can change the flight date for just £35 (if you ever needed to). Air Asia fly from London, stopping in Kuala Lumpur and they can be cheap, Air Asia within Asia is ridiculously cheap. Cheap flights to/within Australia tend to come from JetStar and Virgin Blue (both fly to Bali and onwards to Singapore/Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur in which you can take another flight home).

Bali is a wonderful place but it is also big and varied, for the life and surfing you want to go Kuta which isn't far from Denpasar (the international airport).

Use topcashback or quidco to save some money if booking online.

This is just a brief rundown but hope this helps!

I might be out of date as it was over 10 years ago we last went - we stayed mainly in hostels in Australia - they were generally excellent and cheap and did private rooms at around £15 a night for a double if I remember correctly. And they pick you up from the airport/bus station. Have prices gone up a lot since then?

In Thailand we I think we paid around £20-30 in Bangkok and £10 a night in Phuket for a hotel double room with a/c. But again that was 10 years ago.

Sorry if my info is out of date.

cundall

zagfles wrote: »

I might be out of date as it was over 10 years ago we last went - we stayed mainly in hostels in Australia - they were generally excellent and cheap and did private rooms at around £15 a night for a double if I remember correctly. And they pick you up from the airport/bus station. Have prices gone up a lot since then?

In Thailand we I think we paid around £20-30 in Bangkok and £10 a night in Phuket for a hotel double room with a/c. But again that was 10 years ago.

Sorry if my info is out of date.

OZ is western prices... same as the UK really but the hostels are better than in the UK generally and not too bad... Thailand has also gone up as 5years ago and before you would get 70 to the pound and its now about 50... prices still not bad... about £20 for a stunning AC room..

Back onto topic...

No cheap flights to SE Asia at the moment, cheap to Japan though...

MrWillyWonka

zagfles wrote: »

I might be out of date as it was over 10 years ago we last went - we stayed mainly in hostels in Australia - they were generally excellent and cheap and did private rooms at around £15 a night for a double if I remember correctly. And they pick you up from the airport/bus station. Have prices gone up a lot since then?

In Thailand we I think we paid around £20-30 in Bangkok and £10 a night in Phuket for a hotel double room with a/c. But again that was 10 years ago.

Sorry if my info is out of date.

It isn't that prices have gone up a lot, it's that the exchange rate is half of what it was 5 years ago, effectively prices have doubled just because of the poor GBP-AUD. However the quality of Australian hostels are excellent but unfortunately unlike most of Asia almost all hostels in Australia now charge you (quite a lot) for internet usage. It was cheaper for us to buy a 3G dongle as we had our own netbook.


Back on topic, one thing to note is that getting a return flight isn't necessarily cheaper so you could get separate flights for different sections of the trip.

rooney005

Thank you all for your help, it is greatly appriciated!

Will start mooching at all suggestions and will feedback what we do.

Cheers!