Is there a cheapest city / airline / season to fly one-way from anywhere in Europe to Australia?
Sooner or later in the next few months my money is going to run out and I'll have to get back to Australia from some point in Europe.
Since Europe is big and many fares vary significantly from season to season, I'd like to know if there are some particularly cheap ways to fly from Europe to Australia.
I'll likely be around the centre / east of Europe and I'm hitchhiking so I can get to anywhere the cheapest flight departs from. Only Russia and Ukraine are out that I can think of.
I'd guess I will have to fly some time between about September and November. So I'm interested in the cheapest special offers and cheapest regular economy seasonal prices both for that time period, but also for the whole year in case I should aim for different period to catch a bargain.
I don't mind really long flights or routes that pass through many places, or if I have to fly first to somewhere in Asia and then buy another ticket. (Japan or Korea would be great!)
Because I have so much flexibility with place of departure and timeframe it's just about impossible to use a flight search engine for this. What's needed is somebody who has flown extensively in this area or who has access to travel agency booking systems and loves working out tricky routes, or just having spotted advertising for a special offer.
Best Answer
Flying one-way with many of the major carriers is normally far more expensive than half of a return due to the way airlines price flights. That leaves you with three options :
Find a major airline that doesn't bump prices for one-way (as much). Malaysian is one that springs to mind, and their one-way flights are normally cheaper than other major airlines.
Use frequent flyer points, if you have any. Most airlines allow one-way flights on FF miles, and they are frequently one of the best way to use your miles. Given that most people that pickup hitch-hikers don't give out FF miles, I suspect this may not be a good option for you :)
Check out the discount carriers, who normally price flights the same regardless of whether it's one-way or return.
Unfortunately the major Australia<-->Europe low-cost carrier, AirAsiaX, pulled out of the Europe market a few months ago. At this time I don't believe that there's any single LCC's that fly Europe to Australia, so you'll need to look at flying 2 different carriers - which probably means you'll want to plan at least a night wherever you're connecting.
Picking two carriers at random - Air Berlin from Berlin to Kuala Lumpur and AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney - for a random date I selected in November, flights are available for ~400 Euro + ~A$200, or less than 600 Euro all up. That's compared to about 900 Euro for the cheapest of the major airlines that I can see for those same airports any time in November.
You might want to check out FlightFox, where you can offer a small bounty to croudsource finding the cheapest prices for a flight - although I'm not sure if it supports your concept of "somewhere in Europe" as opposed to a specific airport/region.
If you are coming back through Asia in November, keep in mind that the full moon on the 28th of November is a fairly major event in many Asia countries, and would be a good time to spend a few days in Asia. I'll be in Thailand for Loi Krathong, but many countries have celebrations of some form or other.
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Answer 2
The easiest way to get a cheap flight is to use one of the three dicount airlines that fly into/out of Australia - Scoot (Singapore), Tiger (Singapore-Perth), AirAsia (KL) and Jetstar (destinations). Then find the cheapest available flight linking with an airport serviced by one of these three, since cheap flights into Australia are usually the limiting factor.
Answer 3
I think right now the cheapest way would be to fly with Norwegian from Scandinavia somewhere to Bangkok (from 184 EUR), then with continue with AirAsia to Melbourne (164 EUR), so 350 EUR so for a single fare. To Perth might be a bit cheaper.
Answer 4
I was just recently introduced to Skyscanner, which has some interesting search options. You can specify "Everywhere" as your destination, and "Whole Year" as your timeframe.
It will then show you the lowest fares and the corresponding travel dates to any destination.
If your timeframe is particularly flexible, this might be a good way to find really good fares.
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