glittababe

Have just been looking at the flight centre as planning uk trip for next year, wanted to get an idea of flight costs. Are the prices quoted one way? If not its bloody expensive!!!! (excuse French but in shock)! We're a family of 5 but 2 kids will be older than 11 so it'll be 4 adult tickets and 1 child. Would love to return to see Mark's Mum but if its gonna cost $10,000 then we just won't be able to afford it!

jad n rich

I dont know how anyone with a family could afford it now our mates with same size family as you went last december with Thai, $13,000 by the time the taxes were added on.

We only took 4 of us and it came in just under the $10,000, we did find flight centre the cheapest but others have said zuji.com often win on price.
MIght be worth checking them.

Famous 5

I think it is probably the going rate, although you could try Singapore Airlines website.

We are a family of 5 (3 adult tickets and 2 child tickets) and we travelled back to the UK in October last year at 5 days' notice and Singapore Airlines (booked on their website) beat the prices quoted by Flight Centre, Trailfinders etc. We paid just around $9000. The difference between an adult and child fare was around $500 (including the difference in taxes) so you would be looking at about $9500.

annqldau

At those prices it's worth leaving the child home alone... .

I've often wondered how much difference it would make if you booked a flight to somewhere like Singapore or some other country half way, then once there booked the next leg from there. Don't know if it's any cheaper or not as have just pondered it not done it.

wmoore

I've often wondered too but never really looked at it. You can get to Singapore fairly cheaply with Tiger Airways.

We booked DWN -> LHR with Brunei and I got a couple of coins change from $2000. That was cheap compared to the likes of Qantas and Singaport - I think it was just in taxes because the landing tax is cheaper in Brunei.

sassie

Hi. We've just booked flights to go back to UK in May this year, and the only advice I can offer is to keep checking every day, and try direct with the airlines as well, as we have found from past experience, that it tends to be a bit cheaper if you book direct. We wanted to fly Emirates, and were quite prepared to pay $2135.00 each (2 of us) which was the cheapest we could find around the time we wanted to go. (even going a day later/day earlier can make a huge difference in cost), and were just about to book it and discovered that the price had gone up to about $4,000 each. The next day we tried again and it had come down to $1770 which we snapped up straightaway. the next day it was back up to over $2,500.

wmoore

I've often found the opposite - that going to the airlines direct can be more expensive. But then like you say, prices change almost by the minute so it's difficult to do a proper comparison. For our recent flights, I emailed Flight Centre with various criteria (list of destination airports, list of possible dates, etc) and let them do the leg work

annqldau

You get those round the world tickets as well but they have quite a few conditions so may not be worth the hassle but they do allow for reasonable stop overs.

Wonder if anyone has tried a few hours before the flight is due to close for a price would be interesting to do as a comparison to the cost a few days before.

themerlin

Tiger air fly from Darwin to Singapore for about $120, if they expand to other cities then you might be on a winner

him

We tried a few different branches of Flight Centre for a flight (3 adult fares) departing early December 2006 returning early Jan 2007.
They were easily more expensive than Singapore or Emirates websites.
We ended up buying from a local non FC agency at the same rate as the websites after Flight Centre staff had told us that the cheap fares were not available.
The non FC agency was more helpful than any of the Flight Centre checkout operators have ever been.

sassie

Wonder if anyone has tried a few hours before the flight is due to close for a price would be interesting to do as a comparison to the cost a few days before.[/QUOTE]

I've not actually done this myself, but due to airlines always overbooking by 10% to take in account "no shows", then the majority of flights are going to be full

glittababe

I've not actually done this myself, but due to airlines always overbooking by 10% to take in account "no shows", then the majority of flights are going to be full[/QUOTE]



So that is the going rate then.......bugger! Is it possible to buy tickets from the UK as it seems cheaper to go from the UK > Aus? My sister's ticket was around 500 quid return with stop over at Singapore (that was with singapore airlines).

I've got a kayak, maybe we should start paddling! Would be great to abdandon the kids for a few weeks, only they're the whole reason we have to go back! Mark's mum's missing them badly, she said she just wants to hold them and smell their hair (shes welcome too, just treated them for nits - again)!

glittababe

never heard of tiger airlines, sounds as dodgy as a cattle truck!

Clippy

The prices of these flights are horrendous! This is what is making me very tempted to book a return flight when once we have our visa. At least that way we will get back to see everyone at least once....

Cheetah7

PMSL - I have heard from some people that their kids suffer nits continuously since they moved to Oz. I wonder why that is, is it that they dont treat them or they dont find it serious enough?

I remember the nit nurse and having my hair checked at school and if we had it, we were sent home.

give me the willies nits do.