Hi all,

I'm searching for a really, really cheap flight back to London Heathrow from Sydney at the end of March. It's a long story, but because of work, I can only get a few days off, but I wanted to surprise a mate for his 'big' birthday. I can't really justify the $2000 approx. usual flight price, just for a few days, but I did find a few flights around the $1600 mark. My question is this - are there any tricks of the trade I need to know, in order to pull off a proper cheap deal bargain price? Such as, waiting until the day before the flight, then checking to see which airlines have any spare seats and therefore may be desperate to flog them..... and accept a lower price than usual?

Or am I dreaming?

Will there be anything closer to a grand at that time of year?

You could try Priceline.com - The Best Deals on Hotels, Flights and Rental Cars. (if it works in Oz) but be careful! If you offer a price and they say yes you are committed. I have never used them but friends have with hotels and car rental and it does work.

OK cheers - will look into that.

Try it for yourself. Look for a flight tomorrow or the day after and see what the cheapest you can find is.

Problem is, it doesn't seem to work like that any more - they have cut the price of seats a few weeks out sufficiently to make sure the flight is mainly filled and the final few tickets are for those that will pay the premium, not discount.

If there is a route to truly cheap tickets, I haven't found it.

Personally, I consider $1600 to fly half way round the world and back on a full service airline pretty good value - but maybe that's just me

It shows you that we live in good times when $1600 is considered expensive for this kind of thing (not having a go BTW)

You may be able to get to Bangkok on Air Asia X, then Norwegian Air Shuttle to Oslo, then Ryanair to the UK pretty cheap but it would be killer

Brian, just remember that you'll be bidding in US dollars - huge difference to AUD now! Best of luck with finding your flights.

You get the cheapest flight you can get and pay.

Cheap flights are like being upgraded - on the internet there is always someone who paid 1 dollar for a flight and then got upgraded to first because it was their birthday

Seconding Zulu's suggestion here. Cheap it up to Asia on a budget, then singles via the mid east or Europe, then the UK from there. As a broad brush approach I use Kayak.com to get the picture of what might be on then investigate with the various airlines direct after that. Skyscanner.com helps too if you want to see the big picture of what flights are cheap on what day.

I always look out for promo codes which can be used when booking directly with the airline. Currently you can get 10% off Etihad flights by using the code FEDERAL. I think its valid right through 2015 when booking on their website.