Any non-obvious cheaper routings Dublin to Sydney?

Colours

Hi there,

I have left it pretty late to book a flight to Sydney for this November for my friend's wedding in November. At the moment I'm diffidently checking what Dublin-Sydney flights are available on Expedia but just wondering if anyone might know of any "off the beaten track" type routings and / or airlines which might not be picked up on the typical search engines like Expedia but may be cheaper? Thanks very much.

CabanSail

I know it's old fashioned, but I use a Travel Agent. There are quite a few people who follow her to which ever place she works. She is very good and has a knack of getting the best value fares even if they sometimes are not the cheapest.

If you drop me a PM I'll give you her contact details.

ballooba

There's lots of sales on for flights in Novemeber at the moment. It's not a peak time.

Coileach dearg

I use http://www.momondo.com

Colours

Thanks for your feedback there. I am literally just looking for a combination of flights which will take me from Dublin / London to Sydney and back again (as I'll be staying with my friend once there) so I think that best value and a cheap price are one and the same for me so I wouldn't think that a travel agent's intervention will be necessary. Having said that I may well check them out too!

Any other off the beaten track ideas welcome. Thanks again.

ballooba

Don't limit your options to via London. Manchester is a much more pleasant airport than Heathrow and I'm sure there are many other alternatives. Amsterdam and Zurich being two that come to mind. Heathrow is a degrading and unpleasant experience for everyone involved.

Stinicker

ballooba wrote: »

Don't limit your options to via London. Manchester is a much more pleasant airport than Heathrow and I'm sure there are many other alternatives. Amsterdam and Zurich being two that come to mind. Heathrow is a degrading and unpleasant experience for everyone involved.

Its not that bad! Ok it is a decentralised crappy sprawling mess but if you do your research and give yourself enough time you can get through it fine!

Another option to get down to Sydney is routing through Frankfurt with either Qantas, Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa who only go as far as Singapore; so you would need to buy a Singapore-Sydney ticket separately with another airline if going with Lufthansa.

ballooba

Stinicker wrote: »

Its not that bad! Ok it is a decentralised crappy sprawling mess but if you do your research and give yourself enough time you can get through it fine!

I disagree. Regardless, you would have to agree that if cost were not an issue that there are more attractive alternative stopovers available. Usually I find that there is no cost advantage to flying via LHR anyway.

Stinicker wrote: »

Another option to get down to Sydney is routing through Frankfurt with either Qantas, Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa who only go as far as Singapore; so you would need to buy a Singapore-Sydney ticket separately with another airline if going with Lufthansa.

If booking through a travel agent you can get good deals that take advantage of codeshare agreements between airlines. Travel agents can include online like those on Kayak.com.

hussey

have a look at air asia, a while ago if you picked your dates right you could get from LDN -> Melboune for $650 ish
(I know you'd have to get to sydney and london, but that is a very cheap flight)

e.g. 14th september 186GBP ($310) London -> KL
KL -> Melbourne $233

add some credit card tax on that, pretty cheap price

ballooba

I reckon those Air Asia flights are only for those seriously who are seriously miserly. It's like taking a Ryanair flight to Oz. I've heard the economy class seats described as being designed by the same guy as the McDonalds seats. i.e. intentionally uncomfortable to remain in for an extended period of time.

mel.b

What are your dates and how long do you want to go for. What prices are you getting at the moment? the cheapest I can see from DUB is with Etihad for just under 1200euro. From LHR, I can see flights for 880 euro with China Eastern (thursday departures only).

HTH
Mel.b

Colours

Thanks to all the contributors to this post as all the suggestions made were very helpful. I ended up booking the flights with Air Asia to Melbourne and stopping off for a few days in Kuala Lumpur en route and then an internal flight Melbourne on to Sydney a few days later.

ballooba

Colours wrote: »

Thanks to all the contributors to this post as all the suggestions made were very helpful. I ended up booking the flights with Air Asia to Melbourne and stopping off for a few days in Kuala Lumpur en route and then an internal flight Melbourne on to Sydney a few days later.

Good stuff. Please report back on how you go. Good luck!