Australia

If you use skyscanner to check prices slways book directly with the airline. This saves so much trouble if things go wrong with connections or time changes.

google flights is always worth a considered look.
Try Kayak & Momendo as well.


Way before the seats become available, have your preferred route/airline/stopover planned out.
Once you've done that, check the flights on a daily basis, to see how the prices are looking. As the date for your flights becoming available gets closer, keep looking for any pricing trends.
If all goes to plan, on the date that your flights become available, log on, get them booked and sit back, relax and reward yourself with a rewarding beer.


A couple of other pointers for you - find out what time the airlines "load the flights" onto their system, for example (say) Qantas will load their flights at (say) midnight Aussie time, not midnight UK time.
If you have the time to do it, also look at the cost of the flights ex -eu. There is the obvious cost of the positioning flights and possibly a hotel stay, but the potential savings go from barely to absolutely huge as you go from the back of the plane to the front.
Some of the Chinese Airlines are offering very, very competitively priced flight to Upside Down Land .........if that appeals to you.

Charjohndew wrote: »

Thanks all, we fly economy to the person who asked

I saw air China seem to be very very cheap compared to others, not sure why? Maybe to encourage a one day stop over there?

I found £500 per person return to Sydney so far with air China

I tried really hard to get the Qantas centenary sale but I missed all the chances as they sold. They only now do £660 return.

We really want to go and people have told us there are absolute gems out there for Australia compared to previous years but they said you just hunt through online. I guess I will start with Skyscanner

& then book directly with the airline, unless there is a very considerable reason to use an OTA :beer:.
£500 with Air China doen't look to shabby - check out this link from Secret Flyer. If your dates match up, they've got LON - SYD from the low £400's.


p.s. many people think that Chinese Airlines are heavily subsidised by the Chinese government.

I've always flown Royal Brunei - it's generally one of the cheapest - book direct with the airline. Now they only make one stop en route to Melbourne (in Brunei) it's usually a slightly shorter flight time. Dreamliner planes are very comfortable, lovely cabin crew and huge variety of meals to choose from.