[Billy]

We're desperate to book our one-way tickets to Auckland, but dare not until the missives are concluded on our house sale, otherwise it will be £2k down the drain if it all falls apart.

There is still good availability for 28 Nov - 6 Dec, but prices are starting to go up.

Can anyone advise/reassure as to us still being able to get reasonably priced tickets even if we have to leave it until say 5 Nov?

Thanks.

[veronica]

Early Nov should be ok, late nov/dec don't think its possible to reassure you on that. the nearer to xmas the more expensive and fully booked the flights are although someone on here travelled xmas day and that was ok.

[jocalla]

Can anyone advise/reassure as to us still being able to get reasonably priced tickets even if we have to leave it until say 5 Nov?

Thanks.

Thats the date we arrived last year :clap and we paid a reasonable price. We just kept on checking different days, times etc as the prices did vary.

Joanne

[Billy]

Thanks for replies.

Date of travel will be early Dec, might not be able to book until early Nov.

Cheers

[Moorf]

Prices go bonkers after about 6/8th December. I booked my brother and his family's flights out as soon as we could earlier this year and they were already filling. Seems expats and families pack out the flights from early Dec onwards.

[markkellaway]

Hi Billy,

If you phone they'll let you put a hold on tickets for a couple of weeks without needing to pay, at least Air New Zealand will and I would imagine the others are the same (have always been able to with US airlines but not for as long).

Cheers,

Mark.

[Billy]

Right, thanks, I'll give that a go. Trailfinders are only able to hold for 24 hours.

Cheers

[Benjy]

I recently bought mine for the 29th of november. I dont think it was any more expensive than if i had gone earlier. I paid £700 (there were ones for £600 and above)

[Timbo]

Have just bought ours for Nov. 28th Heathrow to Auckland @£751 each through Flightcentre. This is with ANZ and is CHEAPER than the ANZ web special price. (circa £860)
Mark. Although we havent actually tried to reserve over the phone with ANZ, the guy at Flightcentre laughed in our face when we suggested this to him. He reckoned they wouldnt even do that for an agent.

[Billy]

Are those prices one-way or return?

[Timbo]

Whoops! Ours are open return valid for 12 months. Going via Lax just to get the increased baggage allowance.

[Jo and Andy]

If you have problems, finding good prices, the company I used were brilliant, worked around dates to find direct flights (christchurch), got a 4 day stopover in Singpore at the Shangri-la and transfers, all for what I was going to pay for a flight changing planes twice.

Became a Krisflyer (singapore airlines) Emirates have something similar, phoned them up and they have upped my baggage allowance by 10kg each.

pm me if you want the details

Availability was getting difficult for us going to christchurch direct from singapore after the 22nd of November.

[markkellaway]

Hi Timbo,

They may have laughed at you but I've done it, 3 times! :yes In fact when we did the one way over in August this year I put a hold on the tickets at one price, then after a week and a half the price dropped so I cancelled and put a hold on for another 2 weeks at the reduced price.

Cheers,

Mark. :)

[Timbo]

Blimey, that was a result Mark. Iam only repeating what the agent said, and he was quite adament about it too.
Anyway, he sorted us out pretty well in the end, so no complaints. He even sorted out visas for Oz on the spot at no charge as well.