Cheap flights to Austrailia

[Northernlight]

I'm looking for the cheapest and easiest way of getting to Launceston in Tasmania.

It seems i'll need to change over in either Melbourne or Sydney.

Can anyone make any recommendations on where to find the cheapest flights and the best route to take?

Thank you!

Try Flightcentre. Or you could go to the airlines directly - Jetstar is the budget subsidiary of Qantas, and there is Tiger Airways too. Weirdly, they often seem to be cheapest if you book on a Friday.

Thank you so much for this, it's really useful :)

Try Royal Brunei. I have flown there (to Dubai). When I came back i was sat next to some poor tired Australians - they said it was the cheapest airline to Aus bar none (2 stopovers, one in Dubai, one in brunei).

Have you looked at Garuda?

Not the best Airline ever but cheap.

I've flown with them a few times, long and short haul, not recently and I believe they are better, and safer than they were when I flew.
I had no problems then, customer service was fantastic, especially when I flew with DD.

Thanks guys, this is really useful. Hoping to get a direct flight to Melbourne if possible as I'm flying onto Tasmania.

Majority do seem to have at least one stop though.

I also can't seem to get the flights for under £900!

Going at end of September for two weeks.

I don't know that any airline fly direct, I think they all stop somewhere.
Have you though about a stopover for a couple of days?

I've been to KL, Bangkok and Singapore and all are great.

Check out STA travel, and I've had good experiences with Ebookers.com before for Australia, but that has been for flights to Sydney.
Also it might be worth trying Trailfinders as well - sometimes they can get good deals for you.

(Don't fly Tiger internally - they do a TV show on them over here - they're a dismal airline! )

Have you tried skyscanner I always find the cheapest flights on there for any NZ or OZ trips

I have tried Skyscanner, they're really good thanks.

I will have to do at least to Melbourne/Sydney then onto Launceston, but wondered if it were best getting a direct flight to Melbourne or Sydney?

A few of my colleagues think it's actually better to break the journey further, so London to say Hong Kong, then onto Melbourne then onto Tasmania? As it's such a long flight otherwise.

I would stop over a few nights somewhere but I'm only away for two weeks so unfortunately don't have a great deal of time (or money!)

I'll take a look at Trailfinder :)

Personally if I only had a fortnight, I'd just get all the travelling over and done with.

Garuda at one point was banned from European air space. I don't know if that's changed but I have flown them once out of sheer necessity and REALLY wouldn't recommend them.

I'd suck up the difference, fly SQ and take my swimmers in my bag - there's a pool at Changi Airport and nothing unkinks the weary economy-class traveller better.

I would also suggest you just get the journey over and done with. I have been to Tasmania once, on my first tour of Australia - but that was Hobart and I went out of Melbourne. I think it is swings and roundabouts really - Melbourne is nearer Tasmania, but further from Singapore/HK?Bangkok/wherever; so your overall journey time probably wouldn't be much different.

Don't know about costs - may be more deals on flights to Sydney, but then if you're taking a direct flight to Tasmania you won't pick up on those. Unless you break your journey in Sydney/Melbourne - and then take a local flight to Launceston. That might work out more economical but you might have to take a chance on getting a seat to Launceston (how busy can it be?? )

Airports with swimming pools? It's been a while since I've done a long haul flight.

I wont be using Garuda then...

SQ are fantastic, so I'm looking into them too.

It doesn't seem too much more to just fly directly to Melbourne, about £150 difference so might be worth doing it that way, but I'm rather tempted by Changi Airport now.

Some of the change overs last about 7 hours though so have to be careful with timings. And with the connecting flight to Launceston.

Thumbwitch thank you, that's really useful. I hadn't thought about which airports were closer to Launceston. I think i'd need to book a internal fight in advance from either Melbourne or Sydney though...just in case it is busy

what about Kayak? they give you a month of prices which is helpful

I did look at Kayak, I'll have another look today, I must try to get something booked early next week!