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Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Old Nov 6th 2012, 8:50 pm
  #16  
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Wow, thanks for all the information and opinions. There really are so many considerations to factor I can see its going to be worth investing some serious time in research.

Definatly need to consider if its worth doubling the journey time for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars, especially if it means flying with an "unknown" carrier. Iv managed to find $2300 but it was a journey time of 47 hours!

Nicola is keen not to stop in order to maximise the family time but I think breaking the journey for a couple days on the way back would help with the jet lag as we will be back to work straight away.

We are looking to book in the next couple months so ill get cracking with the airline websites and skyscanner. Skyscanner iv used before and found it great. Expedia and Webjet seem poor as they don't get anywhere near the prices or options Skyscanner delivers.

I hope this is our only trip back for a very long time. Hopefully relatives will come and see us next time!
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 4:18 am
  #17  
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

We've given up on that last hope mate.
Fifteen years on the Isle of Wight being the nationwide traveller to all and sundry has left me with little hope of people making the effort to come here.
Haze's Mum is a legend though. Bakery worker in a supermarket but saves to come here!
I may moan about her coming, but I'm grateful that she does.

We're not looking at another visit to UK after this one........seriously.
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 4:43 am
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

I've always found it hard to beat Emirates at the end of the day. It's usually a good price and the flights are manageable. Thing with the cheaper but longer haul flights is that it does turn you into a zombie for a few days , so you lose precious time with family and friends . Also the flight times may not be too good.

Night flights out for the first leg. Dayish flights 2nd leg to arrive tired but able to sleep at night. That's for both ways.

If you can , do get a bit of a stop-over ( 2 nights) on the way back. It can be tough leaving family after not seeing them for a couple of years & the down time is definitely worth it before taking up the NZ reins again.

Singapore is a great stop-over option IMO.

As for the relatives thing. Depends on your/their ages. Don't count on it but if they do turn up count it as a plus.

Last edited by BEVS; Nov 7th 2012 at 5:14 am. Reason: erk
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 4:53 am
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by hazeandsteve
We've given up on that last hope mate.
Fifteen years on the Isle of Wight being the nationwide traveller to all and sundry has left me with little hope of people making the effort to come here.
Haze's Mum is a legend though. Bakery worker in a supermarket but saves to come here!
I may moan about her coming, but I'm grateful that she does.

We're not looking at another visit to UK after this one........seriously.
I have not had one relative or friend visit us in the 5 years we have lived here and doubt anyone will!! I've been back to the uk twice since living here, now my mum has passed away I'm not planning on returning.

My life is here with my own little family. Not worth the effort anymore no one can be bothered to visit us like they promised
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 7:56 am
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by love30stm
I have not had one relative or friend visit us in the 5 years we have lived here and doubt anyone will!! I've been back to the uk twice since living here, now my mum has passed away I'm not planning on returning.

My life is here with my own little family. Not worth the effort anymore no one can be bothered to visit us like they promised
my first visitor from the UK was in 2007 an ex girlfriend of my eldest son... we'd all been close..
next in 2008 my youngest son came out for a month..
then it was like an avalanche with friends and old neighbours friends of friends all bring little memento's of a life I 'd left behind...so don't give up it just takes them a long time to come up with the $$$$ for the flights and facing the hideous flight...which is my fault as I've always told them how much I hate flying now...
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 10:17 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by babybella
I have just paid 2,700 with singapore airlines for July 2013. a fairly direct flight time of 27 hours. Some of the cheaper airlines would have been up to 47 hours. On the way back I do have 7 hours to kill in Singapore so will either do the city tour or head up to the airport pool for a swim, sleep and shower.
Kaz
I've done a similar thing. I'm going over easter - march & april time. I chose Singapore for many reasons...Flying from Auckland, changing in Singapore then onto Heathrow.

Both stopovers there and back are 3 hours or under.
I also had restrictions on flight times. I wanted to leave in the evening on the Friday after work to maximise my time in the UK - can't beat it - leaving Friday night Auckland, arriving in the UK 3pm Saturday

Singapore has great service - nice inflight food. snacks available during the flight. plenty of free drink if you want it. good inflight entertainment - and seems to often have spare seats so people spread out during the flight. I also have flown with them before so had miles with them so wanted to accrue some more.

Various things to consider are your priorities with travel time v cost.

Another thing to consider, is if your stopover will mainly be spent in the airport - what facilities does the airport have. I wanted to have my 3 hours in singapore changi airport because its a nice one to be in - and if, god forbid my flight is delayed, there's a cinema and all sorts there.

http://www.sleepinginairports.net/ is quite a good website to look at to give you a bit of information. Not that you would probably want to sleep in the airport - but it does have useful info. Not all airports are created equal

I did look at other options.

Cheapest was with China Southern - and they were significantly cheaper - i think around $2,200 - but i'm not doing a flight like that on that airline (personal preference). There were other options - some around that price but the average was $2,400/500....but all with pretty long stop overs.

As I only have 3 weeks in the UK I wanted to spend my time there seeing people not hanging around an airport.


Personally I don't think that having the couple of days break in the journey halfway helps with the jetlag. IMO i don't see how spending a few days in a country on another timezone helps you - that would be 3 timezones in a short period of time. I think the key to jetlag is making yourself acclimatise to the new time zone straight away.

I land in the UK at 3pm so am planning on trying to not sleep on the flight too much on the way there - go to bed earlish in the evening that I land in England and should be ok.
I arrive back around 11am in NZ - that's going to be tougher....will try and sleep on the way back and stay awake all day - and then onto work the next day - yippeeeee!
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 10:31 pm
  #22  
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by hazeandsteve
Haze's Mum is a legend though. Bakery worker in a supermarket but saves to come here!

I may moan about her coming, but I'm grateful that she does.
When I get to NZ I'm going to recount this when people tell me it's too expensive to visit.

I don't expect people to visit however, but it'll be nice to thrown something back at them.
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 10:36 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Friends keep saying to me that they will be planning to visit - but i can't see it happening - they are all just starting up young families and none of them earn fortunes.
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 10:41 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

I'm sure they say it with the best intentions.

My usual tack is to challenge that intention "Yeah, we'll see", or something to that effect.

It'll prepare mentally to be let down, if nothing else.
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Old Nov 7th 2012, 11:31 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by Caz8NZ
Friends keep saying to me that they will be planning to visit - but i can't see it happening - they are all just starting up young families and none of them earn fortunes.
I have 3 children 2 married if my 2 eldest children came with their husband/wife it'd be 2 adults and 3 children each...4 of which would only get 25%off the full fare!!! and the 2 youngest maybe half price... they all wanted to come out and have a month over Christmas/New year this year... they got a shock when the combined bill for 5 adults and 6 children was well over 15,000 pounds that included flights ,insurance, car hire and some accommodation... we could try and squish everyone in our 3 bedder but reckon that would be a nightmare 7 adults 6 kids one bathroom
It's expensive either way...as I've said I go back to visit every 3 years usually only me...my partner came back in 2006 for a month and is planing a month in the middle of my 3 month holiday next year... I'm lucky if you can call it that in the fact that I don't have to consider getting time off work...due to health issues I'm no longer able
I do hate the trip which is made harder because of my health...but I know for sure even if I was on my own I'd never live back there...
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Old Dec 12th 2012, 8:08 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

So we booked our flights yesterday on a Lufthansa early bird fare. We have family in Portugal and Spain as well as the UK which has worked out quite well as it's apparently cheaper to fly back from somewhere in Europe as the long haul UK departure tax has increased so much. We still need to arrange our easy jet or Ryanair flights between Portugal / UK / Spain but we managed to book the following.....

Mid July
Wellington - Christchurch - Singapore - Frankfurt - Lisbon

Mid August
Madrid - Munich - Hong Kong - Auckland - Wellington

Flights are with ANZ, Singapore, Lufthansa and Cathay so all good for Airpoints too.

I have more leave accrued than the OH so as visiting family in the UK is not my idea of a holiday ill be staying on in Hong Kong for a 5 day stopover rather than just transiting through on the way back. Couldn't persuade her it makes sense to take unpaid leave rather than pass up the opportunity

Booked through Flightcentre her ticket was $2260 and mine with the stopover $2330 so we are pretty pleased with those prices.
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Old Dec 12th 2012, 8:10 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by madao
So we booked our flights yesterday on a Lufthansa early bird fare. We have family in Portugal and Spain as well as the UK which has worked out quite well as it's apparently cheaper to fly back from somewhere in Europe as the long haul UK departure tax has increased so much. We still need to arrange our easy jet or Ryanair flights between Portugal / UK / Spain but we managed to book the following.....

Mid July
Wellington - Christchurch - Singapore - Frankfurt - Lisbon

Mid August
Madrid - Munich - Hong Kong - Auckland - Wellington

Flights are with ANZ, Singapore, Lufthansa and Cathay so all good for Airpoints too.

I have more leave accrued than the OH so as visiting family in the UK is not my idea of a holiday ill be staying on in Hong Kong for a 5 day stopover rather than just transiting through on the way back. Couldn't persuade her it makes sense to take unpaid leave rather than pass up the opportunity

Booked through Flightcentre her ticket was $2260 and mine with the stopover $2330 so we are pretty pleased with those prices.
wow i have to say i'm pretty impressed with that - thats for the whole round trip is it? well done! sounds like a bargain!
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Old Dec 12th 2012, 8:16 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Originally Posted by madao
So we booked our flights yesterday on a Lufthansa early bird fare.

Booked through Flightcentre her ticket was $2260 and mine with the stopover $2330 so we are pretty pleased with those prices.
Good one. So expensive isn't it but those are good prices IMO.

Mr BEVS is using Lufthansa too for his upcoming UK visit. Flight times are quite long but the price was the best I could find when I factored in his need to get to Wolverhampton.

His flight share is ANZ, Singapore , Lufthansa.
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Old Dec 14th 2012, 4:02 am
  #29  
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

Qantas had a sale on recently so i got for April

Welly to Sydney to Hong Kong to London - non stop with Qantas and British Airways flights

&

London to Singapore to Adelaide to Sydney to Welly - with 3 nights in adelaide and 2 in sydney on the way back for 2500

Qantas flights all the way back

I am part of the frequent flyer scheme and after these flights and the points i already have, i could go one way to Bangkok for $90 plus all my points!

From the end of April i think Qantas team up with Emirates and ditch British Airways as their codeshare partners on the AUS/NZ to Europe route.

Not bad
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Old Dec 17th 2012, 2:39 pm
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Default Re: Flights to the UK best options - first trip back to the old "home"

I can't understand why people get upset when relatives don't fly half way round the world to visit. Don't forget it's you who decided to leave and go about as far away from everyone as you can possibly get.
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