indiana

Hi

What are the best sites to book flights from uk to Australia, i'm wanting to book for around 17th December for a month, any recommendations greatly appreciated. Thank you

old.sparkles

Try google - but you may have left it a bit late. I've booked flights direct with Malaysia and Singapore Airlines before now and both have offered reasonable prices. Good luck

indiana

Thank you I will have a look at those, I've been googling, and have my laptop settings to uk (or so I thought) but its only bringing up Australian sites and payment in $, I'm wanting to pay £, when I typed in flights from uk to oz, uk sites, it still seemed to do the same thing, so I thought I may need to get the actual web addresses of companies and type it in that way. I booked flights last year using a Birmingham company but cannot find any old emails or remember the company name, but they were really competitive. I need to get it booked before the flights go up even more. I was holding off in the hope the visa I'm waiting for would be issued but it's doubtful now so think its just best I get the flight booked ASAP. Thanks again

old.sparkles

There's a couple of sites but I couldn't personally recommend any of them. Are you using google.co.uk?

GarryP

www.kayak.co.uk - set to UK pounds

Most of the airlines will be jacking up their already extortionate prices for that time.

indiana

Thank you, i've actually no idea if its google.co.uk, i just type it into the top of the screen and press enter, will check that now, i've never changed any of my laptop settings since moving as i still do most of my shopping in the uk, but certain things I google lately are just coming coming up oz sites only and even if typing in uk sites its still only bringing up oz sites or .com rather than uk.

I've found a return flight 33 ish hours for just over £1,500 which is better than the £1,800 i was getting before, and the cheaper flights seem to be in excess of 40 hours which is just too long. Will check out Kayak, thank you. It was a company called Omega who I used last time, my husband remembered the name!
I'm booking this for my son who is studying in the uk so need it to be as straight forward as possible travel and connection wise as he's young and not experienced in traveling alone, Old sparkles if you could pm the names of the companies you know that would be great,if you have time, obviously i know your not recommending them in any way, but might be worth taking a look. thanks again

old.sparkles

sent you a pm

Pollyana

If you are in Aus most flight sites will default to Aus because they identify your IP. If you use something to block your IP, like Expat Shield, you will then manage to get UK based sites and prices.
www.expedia.co.uk is one site I use a lot, they are pretty good for prices. However you're booking pretty close to Christmas, so expect to pay a fair bit.

DebzinUS

I use Sky Scanner

http://www.skyscanner.com/

There is a place on the top right of the web page to change currency and country. This site will give you a number of options in the results so that you can compare prices and where to purchase.

OzTennis

Have used and can recommend:

Travelbag
Trailfinders
Austravel
Netflights

Google and then click on link.

Dec 9 to Jan 9 approx is the highest fares of the year with most airlines but if the dates are not flexible then you have to go with it.

We chose to leave the UK on 10th Jan (couldn't leave pre-Dec 9th) which was a few £K cheaper for the 2 of us than 9th Jan (J Class, Emirates).

Most of our recent flights have been booked directly on the airline website - very similar price to all the above.

Good luck with the search.

GarryP

Hmm, took a flyer at what I guess you are looking for (Birmingham <> Brisbane) and as expected the prices are high.

The cheapest (~£980), as usual, is China Southern - but with long durations and the 'joys' of chinese airports and planes. Probably best to avoid unless a student.

There are Etihad at £1200, but with a weird route that goes via amsterdam, abu dhabi and singapore, and so takes a while.

Then there are bunch of code shares with China Southern (what's the point).

Lufthansa doesn't seem bad, but we are up to £1600, and by the time we reach £1700 we are at Qantas and their code share with Emirates - which gives you the option of a more direct route.

Looking at the results, I'd either consider seeing if I could leave from London (when there is a 1 stop Etihad flight possible), or seriously looking at the options for flying out to a European city, stopping for long enough to bypass the UK flyers tax, then flying on.

roaringmouse

As you mention, looking at flying from somewhere like Frankfurt can bring the price down. For Frankfurt-Brisbane return, out on 17/12 I'm seeing £954 via Dubai, although the total time is 36 hours. Getting a bit more reasonable at 26 hours then Korean Air via Seoul is showing as £957 return from Frankfurt.

Return flights between Birmingham and Frankfurt with Lufthansa to match those days coming up as £139.

These are from skyscanner

Amazulu

Lot's of good options for you but the one I have used the most over the years is www.netflights.com/

indiana

Many Thanks to everyone for all of your help, none of these i'd found from googling so it was definitely worth me asking for your help.

Pollyana in all honesty i'm useless with anything technical, i've only managed one quick call back to Ireland to my mum in the last 7 months and that cost me over $1 a minute (they don't have internet so communication is hard!) I've never heard of blockers, perhaps I need to investigate,

Pollyana

Easy solution for you, if you use Firefox to browse the internet. Go to this post from GarryP
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showp...93&postcount=2

and cick on the link, then install the add-on to Firefox. You should then be able to browse sites that normally would block your IP because of the country you are in (like the airline sites that defaut to Australia). Easiest blocker I've found