Flying to Brisbane Australia. Advice needed please.

swingaloo

I want to go to Brisbane for a 3 week holiday next February (2017)

Im looking for which route is best regarding stopovers and price. Also a good central accommodation as I wont be driving.
Any recommendations and help really appreciated please as never done such long haul before.

PeacefulWaters

Skyscanner site uk to Australia might help you to identify options 11 months ahead. £600 return in economy doable.

Try business class routing starting in Oslo. £1,450 might be possible if the timing is right.

zagfles

What do you want to do/see on the stopover? Just a rest from flying, get over the jetlag, or do you want to do touristy stuff?

For accomodation look on the usual booking sites eg booking.com tripadvisor and check reviews.

richardw

Where in the Uk are you?

Do you want to avoid Heathrow?

swingaloo

Thank you for the replies. Im in the North West but if needed can go from Heathrow. I plan just to stay in the Brisbane area. Im going alone so want to be able to stay somewhere pretty central and need to bear in mind getting from and back to the airport.

Would prefer as short as possible stop over as not bothered about sightseeing, just want to get to Brisbane as quickly as possible.

richardw

Options from MAN avoiding Heathrow are Emirates, Etihad airways, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines.

zagfles

swingaloo wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. Im in the North West but if needed can go from Heathrow. I plan just to stay in the Brisbane area. Im going alone so want to be able to stay somewhere pretty central and need to bear in mind getting from and back to the airport.

Would prefer as short as possible stop over as not bothered about sightseeing, just want to get to Brisbane as quickly as possible.

So you don't really want a stopover? You'll need to change planes at least once and have a few hours wait in someone like Singapore, KL, Bangkok, Vancouver etc, but that's not what people usually refer to as a stopover.

How well do you think you'll sleep on the plane in a seat? If good then just book straight through in economy. If badly then you have a choice of either paying about £1000 extra or more to go business and get what is a basically a bed in a dorm, or do something like what we did and have a longer stop in Singapore and book the transit hotel for around £100 or less. This will delay your arrival by maybe 5 hours or so, but you get a private room with private facilities and it'll be dark and quiet, even in daytime.

dondo

We flew with Singapore Airlines last year from Manchester to NZ and did stopover at Singapore there and back- staying 1 night on way out and 2 nights on way back (mainly as we had kids with us) and can highly recommend them. Also Changi airport is a great airport- probably best I've ever been through.

zagfles

dondo wrote: »

We flew with Singapore Airlines last year from Manchester to NZ and did stopover at Singapore there and back- staying 1 night on way out and 2 nights on way back (mainly as we had kids with us) and can highly recommend them. Also Changi airport is a great airport- probably best I've ever been through.

Yes, and you can even get a free city tour if you have enough time, and they have a butterfly garden, swimming pool and loads of other stuff.

Though we didn't end up doing anything other than sleeping - I booked the transit hotel for 10 hours and we spent nearly all that time asleep in a lovely comfortable bed in a very quiet and dark room, even though it was the middle of the day! Arrived about 0900 (0200 UK time) and left about 2100.

Was weird on the Sing-NZ leg when they were serving dinner with wine and we really wanted breakfast with coffee But really helped with the jet-lag, stayed awake on the overnight flight, couple of early nights in NZ and we were into the new timezone.

mgdavid

If you want to get the flights over and done with asap, Cathay do LON-BNE with a 55 minute change in HKG, they guarantee the connection and have staff meet you at the gate to help you through priority transfer. Works for us.