Australia - Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Air or Phillipine Air?

harz99

newbieFTB wrote: »

Looks like I was too slow... the prices for the Cathay Pacific have gone up from £720 to £1040!

Malaysia air it is then!

On the MH A350, see if you can get the extra legroom seats at the very front of economy. Not near an exit or toilet so very peaceful for the long flight.

Voyager2002

slinga wrote: »

I notice Matrix has a note saying:







Want to explore flights and get fast results?

Try Google Flights

Yes: that note was added when Google bought Matrix (ItaSoftware). And to be fair, Google flights is probably slightly quicker and easier to use, but obviously that is the upside of being far less comprehensive.

Murphy_The_Cat

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Google Flights is the simplified (or "for dummies") version of the excellent ItaSoftware, which is a far more comprehensive flight search tool. I suggest you see what you can find on the full version.

One biggie is that you can select your flight and book it via google flights, whereas ITAMatrix is purely a research tool.

mgdavid

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

One biggie is that you can select your flight and book it via google flights, whereas ITAMatrix is purely a research tool.

I frequently read on here that the advice is always to book direct with the airline, never via an intermediary.

Murphy_The_Cat

mgdavid wrote: »

I frequently read on here that the advice is always to book direct with the airline, never via an intermediary.

With Google Flights, you get various links at where you can book - once you've picked your flights, you'll get a list of booking sites. Typically they'll contain 2 or 3 airlines (usually from the same flight group) OTA's like expedia then possibly OTA's like edreams,



Its quite interesting to see how the prices can vary from booking directly via an airline, via a "reputable" OTA and a "shonky" OTA.


It all depends how you work out your own personal risks/benefits/savings.


A simple LHR-NYC flight, Hand Baggage Only, for 1 person, I'd be happy to use a shonky OTA, if the benefit was worthwhile.

For a multi flight, long distance trip, with more than 1 passenger, the saving would need to be substantial for me to not consider booking direct with the airline.

CardinalWolsey

From multiple flights on both, I would go for the A350 over the 777 every time, CX is a great airline, and HKG well worth a layover.

And don't bother with the internet on board. Load up a tablet with your own IFE, and plug in a pair of good quality noise cancelling headsets (although to be fair, for irregular travel the airline IFE is good, but for a trip of that length a NC headset is a wise investment, and the tablet a good backup policy).