Australia Flights December 2013

DaisyKnight

Hi All,

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere!

My boyfriend and I are looking to do a trip to Australia at the end of December this year for around 3 weeks. We'll be flying from England to Sydney, to Brisbane, possibly to Ayers Rock, to Cairns then home from Cairns. We do realise that it wont come particularly cheap!

Could anyone recommend airlines that charge reasonable prices for flights? I have been having a look on line and they seem to vary massively. So far, the cheapest I have found are with Cathay Pacific, but as I've never looked for flights like this before I'm unsure if I'm missing other airlines that are competitive, and a google search just brings up lots of comparison sites which havent been very useful.

Also, has anyone travelled within Australia that can recommend a good internal airline?

Thanks in advance!

Daisy.

blindman

DaisyKnight wrote: »

Hi All,

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere!

My boyfriend and I are looking to do a trip to Australia at the end of December this year for around 3 weeks. We'll be flying from England to Sydney, to Brisbane, possibly to Ayers Rock, to Cairns then home from Cairns. We do realise that it wont come particularly cheap!

Could anyone recommend airlines that charge reasonable prices for flights? I have been having a look on line and they seem to vary massively. So far, the cheapest I have found are with Cathay Pacific, but as I've never looked for flights like this before I'm unsure if I'm missing other airlines that are competitive, and a google search just brings up lots of comparison sites which havent been very useful.

Also, has anyone travelled within Australia that can recommend a good internal airline?

Thanks in advance!

Daisy.

Speak to Trailfinders or STA travel to see what they come up with.

Some fares include stopovers and internal domestic flights.

We flew with Virgin Blue a few years back and they were the only ones to be on-time!

We did LHR-Perth-Ayres Rock-Mel-SYD-Cairns-LHR

Budget Airlines Australia

Cheapest outgoing day may be Xmas and Boxing day

DaisyKnight

Thanks for your reply.

We get brochures for Trailfinders in the post every so often so I will have a look. We were also thinking of going in to STA Travel at the weekend to see if they could help. It seems that as we have multiple flights it may be the best way to go, rather than buying each flight individually.

I have heard that it can be cheaper to fly via South America rather than the more usual Singapore/surrounding arears route. Any thoughts? I can't seem to find very much online really.

callum9999

DaisyKnight wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.

We get brochures for Trailfinders in the post every so often so I will have a look. We were also thinking of going in to STA Travel at the weekend to see if they could help. It seems that as we have multiple flights it may be the best way to go, rather than buying each flight individually.

I have heard that it can be cheaper to fly via South America rather than the more usual Singapore/surrounding arears route. Any thoughts? I can't seem to find very much online really.

I find that incredibly hard to believe - and have never, ever seen it as a standard route to get to Australia. Particularly as flights from the UK to South America can be as much as it is to get to Australia anyway!

As they said, Virgin and Qantas do deals that include internal domestic flights (pretty sure Etihad and maybe some others do as well) but it may be cheaper to get budget flights internally separately.

I'd personally get a variety of quotes then just compare them. Get them with Virgin/Etihad/Qantas including the domestic flights. Then get them from anyone who flies there (probably open jaw so you fly into Sydney and out of Cairns) and see what sort of price the internal flights you want are (most likely from Jetstar or Tiger Airways).

richardw

Last flights of the day from LHR to SYD, no stopover, on the 24th can be cheaper aswell.

Obviously_the_best

China southern is a good cheap airline to get there, and if you want cheap internal flights jetstar or tiger are the way

Westin

For internal flights within Australia take a look at Virgin Australia and Jetstar.

I'd avoid Tiger Airways Australia.

MrsBunny

hi, i would try and go to see STA, flight centre trailfinders etc as they may have access to nett tickets which are only available to trade to sell. These normally have better rules and conditions. Also if you can change your route ie into Brisbane, instead of Sydney first etc....I would write everything down, places you want to visit, how many days in each place, whether you want to fly in the AM or PM for the internals. This would help the travel agent, who can then work on your quote for you, give you an idea of the best prices etc. A few airlines also offer air passes but like someone has mentioned, sometimes it is cheaper to book these seperatley with their low costs carriers. From march, Emirates and Qantas will be 'codesharing' flights so you may get some good deals with Emirates through Dubai, then Qantas onwards. Other carriers are Etihad, Qatar, BA, Cathay, Singapore...etc If you fancy a stop in north america on the way home......a round the world ticket might work too? Good Luck! I book flights for a living, I hate doing my own personal travel!