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Original poster

to ask for you tips with booking cheap long haul flights?

27 replies

Extraordinarytimes · 29/11/2024 13:37

After costing up a modest eurocamp style break in France, I am wondering if we would be better off spending on flights and staying in a much cheaper country?

I haven’t traveled long haul since the kids were born and have been studying sky scanner but not really getting anywhere. Want to travel mid-August and don’t mind gentle monsoon. Do mind heat - can’t be higher than 35 really. Happy with modest accommodation; as long as the kids have a separate room and it’s clean. We used to camp (can’t now for health reasons) so standards can be low! Kids are all foodies so street food etc would be heaven for them. Would be lovely to have a beach but if not, decent hotel pool would be OK if there was plenty to see and experience.

Normally takes us 24 hours to travel to France so happy with similar flight time, or less! I have been looking at Thailand but can’t really make the flight figures work. Hoping for a total travel+accomodation spend of £4k - for 12-14 days. Husband refuses a shorter break as he takes that long to de stress!

Any hints or tips please? Or am I dreaming/being unreasonable and should return to France? 5 of us, kids 14, 12 and 10.

OP posts:
minipie · 29/11/2024 13:56

A package may well be cheaper -worth a look. Unfortunately a lot of places count 12+ as adult though.

HelenHywater · 29/11/2024 13:49

It would be difficult to get a holiday for 5 to the Far East for £4k - it looks as though the cheapest you'll (currently) get flights for is £600pp. Is that too much? You could stay in hostels/2 star hotels to keep the cost down.

I do get reasonably priced flights each year but am pretty open-minded about where I go - looking at places that look reasonably cheap. I'd do an "everywhere" search on Skyscanner for open dates - go at end July and come back in August and see where comes up cheaper. Then save the flights and get notifications about price decreases. I usually book mine in or around April of the year I go. You can then play around with dates to get the cheapest combination. be prepared to go on strange airlines/strange routes. I went to Japan last summer with Lot Airlines (Polish Air) and the flights were really reasonable! I went to Guatemala the year before via Canada - again more reasonable. We don't mind adding on a few hours though in order to save money. We had a day trip in Toronto which we all enjoyed !

We also stay in very cheap places when we go - so had a combination of hostels, cheaper hotels and Airbnbs in Japan, and similar in central america last year. I'm happy to sacrifice comfort so that I can have more adventurous holidays.

Also you can sign up for Jack's Flight Club (I think you have to pay now) and they email you details of bargain flights. There are quite a few now because of Black Friday.

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