Flights

[m and l]

The wife and I are planning a trip to Asia in the near future with maybe a week or 2 in glorious Pattaya. Haven't been for a while and we are shocked at flight prices! Looking like £1k is standard return London to BKK. We now live in the northeast of the UK and are considering all options to make it more affordable. We've always flown from lgw or lhr before to BKK or don muang. Sometimes direct on Thai or Eva sometimes on Emirates or Etihad via Dubai or Abu Dhabi. 

A mate told me he recently went with scoot which was cheap but a bit if a nightmare, no food drinks inflight ents. And also they brought his return flight forward and told him by email so he missed it ( the email and the flight!!)

So any thoughts?? Any tips on flying from Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow or Edinburgh?

Or any wisdom on airlines.

Also like to see what ppl are paying these days...

[davidge]

Scoot suspended the route in August. I haven’t seen them announce a restart yet.

Flight prices have shot up. Obviously, KLM is an option from regional airports but hardly a day goes by without me seeing someone say KLM have cancelled their connecting flight and left them with a much longer layover.

Swiss/Lufthansa/Austrian have been offering some good fares but think it’s only Heathrow. Similarly, Saudia have been offering cheaper fares but are also cancelling flights - and you’d need to be desperate to use them anyway!

Otherwise, you’ll just have to bite the bullet and use Emirates/Qatar/Etihad from an airport closer to you.

[Snowbird99]

I use Kayak to research flight options. Seems to cover the choices  quite comprehensively. 
What might be worth looking at is changing, in Kayak, the departure airport from a uk airport to e.g. Amsterdam, Frankfurt etc. This can throw up some options. E.g. Cathay from Ams to Bkk in January is around £600 return. Downside is quite a long flight, around 24hrs, and you need to sort your own travel to Ams. 
 

Just search ‘Kayak flights’ using Google. 

[m and l]

6 minutes ago, Snowbird99 said:

I use Kayak to research flight options. Seems to cover the choices  quite comprehensively. 
What might be worth looking at is changing, in Kayak, the departure airport from a uk airport to e.g. Amsterdam, Frankfurt etc. This can throw up some options. E.g. Cathay from Ams to Bkk in January is around £600 return. Downside is quite a long flight, around 24hrs, and you need to sort your own travel to Ams. 
 

Just search ‘Kayak flights’ using Google. 

Thanks will defo have a look at kayak.

 

[jaynewcastle]

Those who haven't been watching flight prices all year have had a shock when they come to check

Demand is far exceeding supply so all reports consistently advise that flights are essentially full so no hope of sales etc

There are various threads this year on flight prices scattered over the forum, (though none are actually in the Transportation & Travel sub-forum)  

This is the main thread, for information.   

I fly with Emirates (economy) out of Newcastle every Jan, returning late Feb. This year, the cheapest price was £716 back in April (I paid £852 for the exact same flight in June (as I waited for the price to drop further, which it didn't))  😞

Cheapest prices are out of London, I would use a good flight search engine such as Matrix or Google flights, to regularly check prices

[Stokielad]

Yes, it's not great, especially around the peak December - Jan season. If you can go a little later March has some reasonable direct rates from London, Eva Air have flights around £700 non stop return but again nearly double for the Easter period.

Best advice is book as early as you can, there will be virtually no last minute bargains.

Also, do not give into the temptation from the North East and use KLM. Have a look at the thread at KLM, but in short in May, my 15 hr flight turned into a 40 hr nightmare, and cancelled my return trip no less than three times, and lost my luggage for nine weeks! Do not touch them with a bargepole for another year until they have their staffing levels sorted out.

[Greg_B]

I'm planning a March 2023 trip and booked by mid October for it. It was a daily battle online and you must check it on a daily basis. I got a notification one day that a price had dropped and I was very lucky to get it booked.

I used justfly.com for a search engine and signed up for notifications on prices. I would get an email everyday and it was worth the minor headache. I paid $852 (USD) for ORD-YVR-BKK

[Geordie59]

2 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

I paid $852 (USD) for ORD-YVR-BKK

Well I think most of know where BKK is but despite being well travelled I have no idea where the other 2 places are. Paid in $ so I’m guessing N America???

[m and l]

We're in the process of booking, £900 each, Ouch!!

We could get £748 with KLM but decided against it given the warnings above.

 

Thank you all for the advice. Next trip we will be takin fred pontins advice. Book early 🤣

[Greg_B]

5 minutes ago, Geordie59 said:

Well I think most of know where BKK is but despite being well travelled I have no idea where the other 2 places are. Paid in $ so I’m guessing N America???

The idea behind the post is simple....

Instead of searching yourself, I used a site that would notify me on prices (daily basis). 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Greg_B

[Geordie59]

1 minute ago, m and l said:

We're in the process of booking, £900 each, Ouch!!

We could get £748 with KLM but decided against it given the warnings above.

 

Thank you all for the advice. Next trip we will be takin fred pontins advice. Book early 🤣

I flew on KLM 3 months ago and it was fine. Just thought I’d say that given so many negative comments about them. I certainly wouldn’t pay an extra £150 to avoid them. 
I think the biggest issue they have had is people who actually have to check in in Amsterdam. That has been taking hours according to mates who live there. 

[Geordie59]

11 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

The idea behind the post is simple....

Instead of searching yourself, I used a site that would notify me on prices (daily basis). Or I can sit behing the PC and do the battle myself for hours..

Still none the wiser so I googled it. I now know that ORD is Chicago and YVR is Vancouver. 
These little details are important in relating to the cost of the fare. 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Geordie59

[LeoTex]

11 minutes ago, Geordie59 said:

Well I think most of know where BKK is but despite being well travelled I have no idea where the other 2 places are. Paid in $ so I’m guessing N America???

I believe he is flying from Chicago (USA) to Vancouver and then to Bangkok. 

BTW, a very good price. 

[Greg_B]

13 minutes ago, Geordie59 said:

Still none the wiser so I googled it. I now know that ORD is Chicago and YVR is Vancouver. 
These little details are important in relating to the cost of the fare. 

The YVR-BKK portion is right at 16 hours and is direct. 

It's a seasonal route (Air Canada) and goes from Dec 2022 -April 2023

The cost to me was low and a good deal (825 USD)

[jaynewcastle]

13 minutes ago, Geordie59 said:

Still none the wiser so I googled it. I now know that ORD is Chicago and YVR is Vancouver. 
These little details are important in relating to the cost of the fare. 

As every airport has a unique identifier, it takes about 10 seconds to google any you don't recognise 

[BigLicks]

1 hour ago, Greg_B said:

I'm planning a March 2023 trip and booked by mid October for it. It was a daily battle online and you must check it on a daily basis. I got a notification one day that a price had dropped and I was very lucky to get it booked.

I used justfly.com for a search engine and signed up for notifications on prices. I would get an email everyday and it was worth the minor headache. I paid $852 (USD) for ORD-YVR-BKK

I have not used before so I just checked justfly.com for flights I have been watching for weeks BKK-LHR one way, premium economy and economy for March, it is showing £25 and £28 respectively more expensive than Skyscanner, maybe you should have a look?

Edited November 1, 2022 by BigLicks
reword

[Geordie59]

On 02/11/2022 at 02:30, jaynewcastle said:

As every airport has a unique identifier, it takes about 10 seconds to google any you don't recognise 

You are correct and I said that is what I did. But when giving out information it makes sense that people should understand your post without having to use Google.