Flight sales - do they really exist?

mr tommo

mr tommo

mr tommo

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Stoke-on-Trent
Looking for return flights for July - August this year to S.E Asia. Not even too fussed about where we land although would prefer it to be Singapore or Malaysia so I'm pretty flexible on dates..

I just wondered if these flash flight sales actually exist or its all just marketing and I'd be better off just booking my flights now?

If they do, where do I find out about them?
 
Check Emirates they have seat sales regularly. Failing that try Thai airlines would do offer some deals, I find Malaysian Airlines to be quite tight in terms of value

i haven't flown with either Gulf Air or Etihad but both of these have pretty cheap offerings.

Remember to check Seat Guru for feedback on the flights and airlines
 
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Thanks, is this on their sites directly? I've only been using the comparison sites so far.

Cheapest I have at the moment is £750 return per person.
 
They do exist, but it can be hard to tell a good one from a bad one and most of the big savings are in premium cabins (where the big profit margins are). My advice would be to research costs for routes you're interested in over the past six months (hotukdeals is good for this) and then set a price target for each route (E.G. LON-NYC for £399). Keep an eye on fares and then book when you see availability within target.

Skyscanner and Matrix Airfare Search are good for broad searches.

EDIT: As a rough guide, <£500 in economy should be achievable.
 
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On their websites, another tip is to get someone else to do the donkey work - call up Trailfinders or Southall Travel tell them your destination and dates and they will do the rest. what I do know is agents will have access to some really good rates.

£750 seems high for KL or Singapore - you should be looking at about £620 for economy or about £2,100 for business.

One final tip, don't fly at weekends as the taxes go up
 
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Check early and often, book it when the price goes down in a sale and you can afford it and never look at it again!

For budget airlines it's normally best to book as soon as the flights become available. Not sure whether EasyJet cover your route though ;) There is also a theory that around 58 days ahead is the best time to book international flights. Whenever you do book the obvious thing to do is check all the options for different dates, times, airports and airlines and avoid those peak holiday times.

You can allegedly book from some places with a price drop guarantee, but I've never explored how well this actually works. If you Google for cheap flights you will find loads of information about screenscrapers, price comparisons etc.
 
Ok thanks so its just a case of tracking the price daily then really. Have a comparison site telling me Swiss Air have the flights for £502 but SwissAir website keeps crashing on me. EDIT : Ignore that, when I go through to the Swiss air site its £1000+ per ticket.

I will have a look at hotukdeals for deals.

My main problem is the wife goes to uni so we can't leave unti 18th July (start of half term) and she can't finish a couple of days early. :(
 
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Has anybody used a company called cheapticket.co.uk? They came up on a search through skyscanner, but they are showing flights with Swiss Air for £501, but when booked directly through Swiss Air the price is over £1000.
 
Best I have paid is £475 into Asia be in general £600 is about right. Business class best I got was £1500 but £2000 is about the going rate.

Does anyone know a cheap way I can fly business class to Australia. I have found flights four around £3k but was hoping to pay lass (2 of us travelling)
 
Well cheaptickets.co.uk suck :p Just called them and the prices on their website aren't live meaning the £500 flight I called up about was actually £768.

Will just keep checking all the main ones and any suggested above.
 
Doubt you'll find many exciting fares in July-August it's peak season!

Keep checking the airlines' own sites for special offers. They come and go all the time.
KLM, Malaysian, Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian are where I'd check for low fares.
Finnair also has some very good offers from time to time- especially to Japan.

Singapore Airlines are excellent but are not particularly competitive IME.

Can't speak for Middle Eastern airlines I'm afraid.


Dr House said:
Does anyone know a cheap way I can fly business class to Australia. I have found flights four around £3k but was hoping to pay lass (2 of us travelling)
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Lufthansa and SWISS have some specials in Business at the moment.
 
About 3 years ago, as a frequent flyer, I started an Excel spreadsheet (with pivot table) which, after much input for the same flght booked at different times, always told me that between 5 and 8 weeks prior to flying was the best time to book.

This system picked the same location in January, to fly in Feb, March, April, May, June, July, etc. Then Feb, to fly in March, April, May, June and so on.

Oddly, there was an article on BBCR2 last week about this very subject in which SkySkanner had meaned data from over 10m (IIRC) flights over a number of years which showed that 5 weeks prior to flying was the best time to book, irrespective of so called "sales"
 
Dr House said:
Does anyone know a cheap way I can fly business class to Australia. I have found flights four around £3k but was hoping to pay lass (2 of us travelling)
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I recently booked tickets to Australia/New Zealand. That's as cheap as I could find them (with Cathy Pacific).

It might be possible fly out of another European city and save a lot of money but I didn't want to make a long flight even longer.
 
Tunney said:
I recently booked tickets to Australia/New Zealand. That's as cheap as I could find them (with Cathy Pacific).

It might be possible fly out of another European city and save a lot of money but I didn't want to make a long flight even longer.
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I am tempted to go with Etihad as they owe me a free upgrade so I may only have to pay £3.3k for my wife and £800 for me.
 
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