We (2+2) are planning to fly to South East Asia in mid December. The price are eye watering !!
Anybody have any advice on buying fly ticket nowadays ? The earlier the better ? Or wait until more flight are put in place and the petrol supply chain find alternative way ??
This is what I usually do:
Always use private mode (Incognito) when searching for flights.
Best to be Flexible with dates.
Use https://www.nz.kayak.com/ to search for flights for a date range of +3 & -3 days.
Once you found the flights that is most suitable then head over to https://www.skyscanner.co.nz/
and search for the specific dates you found in Kayak to find the best deal.
Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for the advice. I was wondering why you use 2 different websites.
Playing around a bit, I found out that from Kayak it's impossible to get the price displayed when clicking from their link.
Skyscanner return similar price than Kayak (but without the +- 3 days options for price comparison) but clicking on their link give you the price displayed.
But then when I choose the cheapest option, I end up with Travelgenio. This site seems to have quite a bad reputation with quick googling !! Anyone have any experience with them ?
Follow up with this, any booking site to never touch (like Viagogo) ?
My advice is that the earlier you book, the less you will pay. This is because:
Airline pricing follows the laws of supply and demand. In mid-December, flights are in great demand as people travel for the holidays - particularly in 2022 after the last two years of restrictions. If you were travelling off-peak / low season, you could wait a short while for specials… But for December there is no reason for flights to get cheaper over time - because people will travel, and airlines can count on this (aside from unexpected travel restrictions).
Add to this the limited capacity (i.e. supply) as many airlines and airports struggle to re-hire enough staff (See what's happening in Europe now with all the airport chaos - other places are also at risk of this happening). It also takes time to bring aircraft back from storage and re-enter them safely in to the operation. All of this limits the number of flights that the airlines can operate.
If/when more flights are added you might see a correction of prices as the airlines try to stay competitive, but the above points continue to play a huge factor. Numerous airlines that previously flew to NZ have not yet indicated a return date, so you might find yourself limited to the current options.
Fuel is the greatest cost for an airline - and airlines have already started to pass this rising cost on to customers. As @Superpower21 mentioned it's costing Air NZ almost $100k in fuel to fly to the U.S. - more than double what it was before. Nobody knows what will happen with fuel prices… but if it goes up further, this will inevitably be reflected in ticket prices.
If you aren't able to afford the current cost of tickets in December, it would be best to reschedule your trip to a less busy month if possible - but still book early.
Hope this helps!
Sound like better not to wait … just buy asap ! Thanks
I took the plunge and booked the tickets for Nov to Southeast Asia. I was waiting since June and saw that the tickets are becoming more expensive every week. I ended up spending $800 more than what I saw initially for 2 + 2. May not be the case for you. Also I wanted quickest/less stop over with kids so I didn't bother comparing different options that had more stop overs.
I booked some flights via Malaysia Air, and took their Flexi option.
Flexi option has good perks and the best one is free cancellation.
Once I booked my tickets in early January this year, I put a google flights tracker on my dates hoping the prices will go down.
Sometime in Feb the prices dropped, and I cancelled my original booking and rebooked on the cheaper fare (same dates/seats/flight number).
I saved $1100 for 2+1 infant.
What happened when you cancel? You get credit back? Let say if you spent $6000 on the 1st booking and use $4900 for the 2nd booking, you gonna end up with $1100 credits in your account that you cannot cash out?
No no, its free cancellation and refund to your bank account/visa card, no credit in play.
So yeah I booked tickets for $4400, cancelled them…. and even though they said it will take 2-3 weeks for the refund to show, the refund was in my account the next day.
Rebooked my tickets for $3300.
But I made my second booking first before cancelling the first one. Just so I am sure I got the seats.
Cheers for this, is this only apply to Malaysia Airline? I guess t&c on others airlines will be vary right? So you got a full refund same amount back to your bank account? I always tot there will be some non refundable fees that will applied to this.
Would you be able to share the flight cost details and approximate destination?
Anyone used Malaysia Air before and recommend? Are they like Air Asia?
sure, its a round trip from NZ to India. June-Aug
We only go with Singapore Air (better service) or Malaysia Air (okay service)… the others are very expensive: Emirates/Qantas/Air NZ
2x Adult: $1550 ea
1x infant: $200
Thanks! I'm helping a colleague out, he's an older gentleman looking to travel end of Aug from 20th ish and return in a month. He's not very techh savvy and I was teaching him how to use online search engines. I usually just use Skyscanner & Webjet and/or beatthatflight.
Currently Singapore Airlines are coming in at $2100 return and has the least layovers (in SIN). Is there a particular time in the year that you'd find more deals?
What airline were you looking at? One of my clients told me it used to cost air nz $40000 fuel to LAX (or somewhere, can't remember) but now costing $96000. The other client told air nz is running at 71% capacity at the moment, that's why they are charging more.
South East Asia seems to be easy enough to get to with direct flight, so can't imagine it will get cheaper soon? I did a quick search on air nz in June for Xmas period, Singapore around $2000, Japan $1800, Taiwan $1500. Europe is just too expensive, gave up.
Booking flights to Aus then to Asia separately will be your best bet. Will have to be flexible with dates/times to find ones that match though.
When you buy ticket from 2 separate agent, how does the "connection" or transfer of your luggage between 2 flights work ? Or the people at boarding counter will see all your tickets and do the connection ?
You collect it, go through customs/immigration, have a feed, and then check it back in for the next flight. It wouldn't necessarily be the same airline or terminal. You'd just have to ensure that there is enough time between the flights.
If it's the same alliance they might do it
United did it for us and we had split tickets Domestic united tickets then AirNZ back to Auckland
Problem with separate tickets is the risk that a late flight can mean you miss the next flight. If they are ticketed together the airline will fix any issues. Really a case of working out the risk vs reward (cost saving). Flying with kids in Thesla's case I'd be leaning towards it not being worth it.
Try transiting Australia or other countries
I was able to get New Zealand -> Bali -> Japan (Layover in Kuala Lumpur) -> Australia - New Zealand for about $1500 in 2020
If you’re doing multiple flights and not with the same Airline, ensure you have enough time to make flights in the event something happens or is delayed
Is @beatthatflight similar to Skyscanner and Kayak ? Can you book directly with them ?
When I had a look on their website, when I try to book a flight, it redirect to another booking website (like travelgenio) …
Basically a travel broker from what I can tell.
Send them a private message and ask them what they would suggest.
They post on here frequently and always seem pretty helpful answering questions from Cheapies.
just found this. Yeah we're an aggregator, we index deals from other sites like mytrip, travelgenio, kiwi and more, and display the cheapest. So you don't book with us, but use us like a search engine to find the cheapest :)
Cheaper flights to SEA will be here soon…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/300630263/cheaper-intern…