[firstkings]

You senior member guys must get bored reading the same Qs again and again! Sorry.

Here's an angle on a question I haven't found searching the archives.

We (2 adults 4 children) are heading out in Sept. One-way.

My reaction is to book flights as early as possible (www.ebookers.com seems the cheapest I have found so far), but one regular flyer has advised me to hold on for "deals" - not last minute deals, but specials that arise from time-to-time on the AirNZ/SingAir websites.

Looking a few moments ago these seemed to be all "returns" and more expensive/same price as ebooker. But that was a quick look .

Has anyone any experience of this? Which is better? With six of us a small saving per person amounts to quite serious cash (another night in a motel?!).


Cheers

David

[Ebeee]

Hi David,

We had a similar dilema when booking our flights.

We considered hanging on and trying to get a good deal on one way flights but ended up taking a more conservative approach. We used www.travelmood.co.uk to book our one way tickets. They were really helpful and easy to deal with. It may have been possible to find cheaper flights closer to the departure but it was just an additional worry that we could do without. By booking them in advance we knew what we were paying, budgeted accordingly, and then focused on other things. Not very exciting I know but when you have so much to do prior to your move the easier you make it the better really.

If my memory serves me right, we paid £480 for one way flights to Wellington in February. That was flying from Heathrow to Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Auckland, and Auckland to Wellington. I thought this was pretty reasonable. We also booked flights from Leeds/Bradford to Heathrow for something stupid like £12 plus taxes. That was with bmi. I don't remember the web site but it was 'BMI Baby' or something close.

Anyway, good luck with your plans.

Regards,

Ian.

[dawn]

Travelbag were cheaper for us (and they give nectar points, so my parents got 3600 of them!), we've booked with Air NZ and they were actually cheaper than Air NZ's own website.

We just paid £2030 for a family of 4 one way, (2 adults 2 kids) from Heathrow to Los Angeles (no stopover), LA to Auckland and Auckland to Wellington (they only charged us £40 from Auckland to Welly - tax only).

We've booked 3 months in advance and the fares seem to be pretty stable at the mo, around £490 per person, the kids are 12 & 13, so are classed as adults :( It annoys me that an adult is over 11, stupid rule.

If I were you, I'd be looking to book around June/July, peace of mind is probably worth the extra £100.

And congratulations on the job offer :raebanana

[katandbob]

We booked thru Travel bag, they were good, even tried to get us double baggage alowance, but Cathay wouldnt give, they wouldnt give a reason but TB gave me the direct no. to see if I could have better luck...turned out that CP changed their rules in Oct 05 and if you want double baggage you have to state it before booking, and you get a "migrant" fare.....

basically we paid £300+ taxes/Vat, a total of £785 for 2 adults..LHR-HK-Auckland, but if we wanted to up our allowance to 40kg we had to pay full fare........£399 extra - each!

so I am travelling Lite! :no ...but my sis in laws are loving it!...they have just gone off with a bin bag each!

(oh well ....will have to do some shopping :nice1 )

We are looking at tickets for our boys for september, it pays to play around with the dates....try each date....our tickets were cheaper on the wednesday but dearer on the saturday!

so far....boys are working out at £1080 MAN-DUBAI-SIDNEY-CHCH.

hope that helps...AND IF YOU FIND A GOOD DEAL - let us know!

Kat

[Bubbles]

Hi David, I see you're in Letchworth. I'm just down the road in Stevenage. Fancy a beer one evening ?


I'm with Dawn on this one. Try and book in advance if you can.
We plan flying out 20/09, but that may move a month earlier. Tried lots of web sites but for those dates I actually got a better deal ringing AirNZ direct with the no. they give on their contacts page ( UK web site ).
We plan to fly AirNZ with a stopover in the Cook Isl, but haven't booked yet. With that in mind, Heathrow to LA, then onto Cook Isl and then onto Auckland a week later for £570 per head. Thats 2 adults and the 3 kids, but the kids are all classed as adult aswell because of age, comes to around £2850 inc taxes, oneway.
I think thats pretty good for the 5 of us.

All the best

John

[Smiler]

I'm with John.

We called Trailfinders and got a much better deal than on any website. They seem to try harder and juggle prices if you call. Although we only booked our tickets 5 days before flying here, one way.

[firstkings]

Thanks for the replies all.

I have 4 windows open at the moment - all awaiting my credit card details! Not tonight!

Originally we were going to fly in Oct and the day made little/no difference, but now we've changed to the start of Sept, is does make a noticeable change.

Ebookers is still the cheapest I can find (and it does nectar points!). I think it and travel bag are the same website, with different logos!

I will try phoning - thanks John. I presumed the web would be the cheapest option. The Cook Isl idea sounds interesting!

We must do that beer!

Cheers(!)

David

[sizzlingbadger]

Contact Flight Centre UK. They're the cheapest to use here in NZ but we don't have the same amount of options that you do there.

We used www.flydeals.co.uk when we came over. Came back with by far the best deals. We're a family of 2 adults, 3 children (although the youngest was under two there was no way he was going to be sitting on my knee for more than 24 hours).

[Babette & Andy]

Hi David

You're right, many of us have faced the same dilemma!

Based on last year, flying before 30 Sept puts you in the 'cheaper' season. In the past we always found that www.trailfinders.co.uk got us the best return prices. But for Andy's reccie trip last oct/nov we used www.travelocity.co.uk who's website will give you various airlines and show you cheapest dates to travel around the date you have in mind (he flew Cathay that time).

For our migration journey 4 weeks ago we went with Singapore airlines. After a lot of research I found that (for us) booking it direct on-line (www.singaporeair.com) gave us the best fare (2 adults + 2 children just under 1800 pounds) this was with a week stopover in Singapore.

Found their website easy to use for one-way journeys, and again shows the cheapest days to travel. You do need to pay all when booking. You can pre-book (by chosing on screen) where you all want to sit and also pre-book your meals. I called their reservations to ask what would happen if we need to amend the dates - was told on a number of occasions that as we had booked directly and on-line their would be no charge (providing seats were available and we didn't move into a different season).

Finally, the forever issue of luggage allowance. I so wish they would all start singing from the same hymebook :roll on the phone was told that as migrants we would get 25kg hold + 7kg hand luggage; yet at check-in (when I was wondering how much the excess was going to be . . . ) we were told that as we had PR we had a 40kg allowance :confused: If only we had been assured of this before . . .

Anyway, hope you find the best deal for your family. I know I slept so much better once we'd booked our flights - another piece of the jig-saw completed.

Best of luck

Babette

[Simon & Emily]

Thanks Babette - interesting to know about SI. We are planning to fly sometime before end Sept (PR expires then :uhoh ) and each time we look at flight prices on-line they seem to vary so much, even day by day. As soon as we have firm dates for the house sale (please, please, please ....) we will be able to book, and so as you say, sleep just a little easier at night.

Emily

[craddweb]

Make sure you check out travelocity! They are owned by LastMinute.com but when I booked my flights last month there was a £150 difference on exactly the same flight! All conditions the same too! Weird!