Best deals on long-haul flights

[Upandonward]

Where do you look for the best deals on long-haul international flights please?

I will be travelling to New Zealand at some point in the next 6 months and am rarely finding anything below £1600-ish. It’s been 10 years since I last went (I’m from there) and fares were alway around £850-£1k, and only Christmas did it go above £1400 so it’s a bit of a shock (but expected of course).

I may need to go more than once, and due to terminal illness of family member I don’t have the luxury of purchasing tickets 8-12 months in advance like I used to to get the best deals.

I use sky scanner to search and find the best prices. I went into trailfinders yesterday but they couldn’t match the price I’d found on sky scanner. But long haul flights are wwaaaayyyy more expensive than they were a few years ago (pre Covid I got 4 flights to Costa Rica for £1900 now the absolute cheapest I can find is £3200).

Skyscanner is really useful for seeing
price differences on different days. You can also use it to set up pricing alerts so that you get an email if the price on a route goes down.

I’ve found the cheapest routes to New Zealand are usually China Southern via Guangzhou or China Eastern via Shanghai.
Can be long layovers in China though. I got a couple flights to Auckland via Guangzhou for November this year for about £700 return each. But that included at least a 7 hour layover in Guangzhou each way.

Another suggestion, if you can, is to look at starting the long-haul part of your journey in Dublin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt or similar.
When my parents used to go to Australia and New Zealand they usually got a much better deal by getting a short-hop flight to Dublin or Frankfurt first.

Yep, and given the way UK Air Passenger Duty is zoned and also continues to increase chances are the benefit of starting with a short hop may increase.

If you are willing to do a bit of a roundabout route or fly with carrier other than AirNZ/Qantas you will do better. Unfortunately flights are extortionate at the moment, I have promised DD a trip to Europe (from Aus) for her 21st next year and am seriously regretting it!

We are just looking into booking flights to Singapore. The cheapest flights are on Skyscanner but we need to book them through Carlton Travel. I've never heard of them! This is our first time going to Asia so has anyone used Carlton Travel before? Going with BA or direct with Singapore airlines costs so much more.

@elizabethcharlotte

If you are looking at traveling ex- UK I think at the moment BA and Singapore Airlines are the only carriers offering UK (London)- Singapore non- stop, hence they can charge more.

I’m sure you can get UK-SIN cheaper with other carriers such as one of the Gulf outfits but you need to be aware of connections and timings.

Google Flights are quite good for tracking. You can track over a certain time period or specific dates. They'll also find the best deals coming up.

My mum comes every year from Oz and generally flies Emirates/Malaysia/Singapore. I went Japan Air once which was fab but now it's really pricey as they can't fly over Russia.

£1,600 is a good price. As others have said, prices have increased since Covid.

Skyscanner is also my option for cheaper flights.

Jack’s Flight Club - I follow in SM. Some flight info available. However full savings and deals are only shared if you subscribe. Might be worth it though.