Airline options for multicity holiday

[Bitten]

Hi. Trying to assist my daughter ( who's on a budget) with travel plans. She wants to visit South Korea, Nepal, Israel, Germany, Poland and Austria from Sept to Jan ( return to Melbourne. )
Would a RTW ticket work for this? Otherwise looking for ideas on carriers that may be worth looking at. Any tips and tricks appreciated. Advise so far is to get a one way ticket and book a return flight when in Europe.
Not sure if there are ramifications with travel insurance if you don't have a return ticket.

 

[Boca68]

Hi. Trying to assist my daughter ( who's on a budget) with travel plans. She wants to visit South Korea, Nepal, Israel, Germany, Poland and Austria from Sept to Jan ( return to Melbourne. )
Would a RTW ticket work for this? Otherwise looking for ideas on carriers that may be worth looking at. Any tips and tricks appreciated. Advise so far is to get a one way ticket and book a return flight when in Europe.
Not sure if there are ramifications with travel insurance if you don't have a return ticket.

A RTW ticket could work, but with the preferred countries, you would need to come home via the USA. E.G. SYD-ICN-KTM-FRA/-BER-TLV...etc as an example start to a RTW itinerary. You would be travelling west, you would need to continue west. I don't think it would affect Travel Insurance.

Obviously, once in Europe, the intra European travel options would mostly be better than flying. Trains most obviously. Meaning, arrive into Frankfurt or Berlin then use trains for Poland and Austria.

Others may have thoughts, but I'd avoid a one way ticket, an open jaw might be a possiblity. Thinking SYD-ICN-KTM-FRA, then e.g. FCO-DXB-SYD. Many, many options.

 

[dajop]

One option could be a return ticket into Korea and out of Europe eg( MEL-ICN/FRA-MEL). I looked briefly on kayak, it was showing as $1100 or $1600 on Singapore Airlines, $1400 on Cathay Pacific depending on dates. Then add on separate bookings ICN-KTM (Chinese carrier), KTM-TLV (Air India) and TLV- Europe (Easyjet or other LCC). Probably be cheaper than round the world fare. You can use kayak.com.au or skyscanner.com.au and their multi city booking tools to play around with different dates and combinations.

Another option - speak to travel agent . Cathay Pacific used to have fares which allowed "side trips" from Hong Kong during stopover there for discounted prices. . So routing could be MEL-HKG-ICN-HKG-KTM-HKG-TLV/FRA-HKG-MEL. If these at still exists, would definitely need to speak to a travel agent about that..

 

[jetpack]

I assume she wants to keep her travel dates flexible and is not anti LCC. I would just put together a series of one ways using skyscanner. Seoul is easily accessible on AirAsia/Scoot. Kathmandu on AirAsia/Malindo. Then for Asia to Europe there would be heaps of choices and I expect is very competitive but the LCCs flying this route are Scoot, Norwegian & Eurowings. Easy enough to get around Europe on LCCs. Tel Aviv has so many LCC routes into & out of Europe including on Ryanair for next to nothing. Europe to Melbourne I expect is also competitive so you can get a cheap one way fare there when needed.

I don't think paid travel insurance is affected by the existence of airline tickets. Just put the return date as the furthest possible date she could be away for.

 

[Bitten]

A RTW ticket could work, but with the preferred countries, you would need to come home via the USA. E.G. SYD-ICN-KTM-FRA/-BER-TLV...etc as an example start to a RTW itinerary. You would be travelling west, you would need to continue west. I don't think it would affect Travel Insurance.

Obviously, once in Europe, the intra European travel options would mostly be better than flying. Trains most obviously. Meaning, arrive into Frankfurt or Berlin then use trains for Poland and Austria.

Others may have thoughts, but I'd avoid a one way ticket, an open jaw might be a possiblity. Thinking SYD-ICN-KTM-FRA, then e.g. FCO-DXB-SYD. Many, many options.

Okay thanks! We will definitely look into one-way tickets further then to see if it's worth while. She was thinking of going in the order of MEL-ICN-KTM-TLV-FRA-MEL. Could you recommend any tips on that? It was suggested to potentially get a cheap return flight to KL from melbourne and then book individual flights from there. Any suggestions on that?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Okay thanks! We will definitely look into one-way tickets further then to see if it's worth while. She was thinking of going in the order of MEL-ICN-KTM-TLV-FRA-MEL. Could you recommend any tips on that? It was suggested to potentially get a cheap return flight to KL from melbourne and then book individual flights from there. Any suggestions on that?

I appreciate she's looking to get a whole lot of cities in, but some pairings might not necessarily fit nicely with pricing. KTM-TLV for example. TLV is rarely cheap to get to at the best of times, and it restricts many Middle East carriers from flying there.

A good way to plan is to use google. In the search bar type in schedule xx_-yyy - for example schedule KTM-TLV. This brings up all the options, including connecting flights, to get there. You can then see which carriers are full service, which are low cost. If you see common transit points, for example Istanbul, you could look to see how much of the entire trip you could put on to one ticket.

For example Turkish airlines flies KTM-TLV via IST. But Turkish will also, obviously, fly to Europe. So it might be a ticket KTM-IST (side trip to TLV) - Europe and then back out of her final european city to KL or something like that. Just depends how economical that all is.

TLV can be reached from Europe. Googleflights is a good way to check fares.

Within Europe train isn't always cheapest. Although airlines may charge extra for bags you might find some really cheap deals.

 

[dajop]

I appreciate she's looking to get a whole lot of cities in, but some pairings might not necessarily fit nicely with pricing. KTM-TLV for example. TLV is rarely cheap to get to at the best of times, and it restricts many Middle East carriers from flying there.

The new Air India service from DEL to TLV is probably ideal for this, with no backtracking and short connection at DEL. Well correction, no backtracking to get to the connecting point, there is undoubtedly quite some backtracking involved in getting from DEL to TLV, to avoid middle eastern airspace.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The new Air India service from DEL to TLV is probably ideal for this, with no backtracking and short connection at DEL. Well correction, no backtracking to get to the connecting point, there is undoubtedly quite some backtracking involved in getting from DEL to TLV, to avoid middle eastern airspace.

Good point. Air India has a one way for of AUD700 KTM-DEL-TLV.

Thinking about this there could be a star alliance RTW in the making...

MEL-SIN-ICN on SQ, ICN-BKK-KTM on TG, KTM-DEL-TLV on AI, out of TLV there's Turkish or Lufthansa or Swiss to pretty much anywhere in Europe.

 

[dajop]

Good point. Air India has a one way for of AUD700 KTM-DEL-TLV.

Thinking about this there could be a star alliance RTW in the making...

MEL-SIN-ICN on SQ, ICN-BKK-KTM on TG, KTM-DEL-TLV on AI, out of TLV there's Turkish or Lufthansa or Swiss to pretty much anywhere in Europe.

Although fares really starting to escalate. MEL-SIN-ICN-BKK-KTM-DEL-TLV-FRA-LAX-MEL just fits into the 29,000 mile category ...that's $3699 plus airport surcharges and any carrier surcharges, so probably over $4k, I am sure there cheaper ways, Could save $600 by doing it to/from SYD, (SYD-ICN-CTU-KTM-DEL-TLV-FRA-LAX-SYD)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Although fares really starting to escalate. MEL-SIN-ICN-BKK-KTM-DEL-TLV-FRA-LAX-MEL just fits into the 29,000 mile category ...that's $3699 plus airport surcharges and any carrier surcharges, so probably over $4k, I am sure there cheaper ways, Could save $600 by doing it to/from SYD, (SYD-ICN-CTU-KTM-DEL-TLV-FRA-LAX-SYD)

Quick look at googleflights for single sectors (all separate tickets) gives: MEL-ICN $500, ICN-KTM $665, KTM-TLV $700, TLV-FRA $310, FRA-MEL $1000 = $3175 including all taxes

These are all full service carriers with free bags/food etc. Not cheap. The RTW out of SYD is cheaper.

 

[dajop]

Quick look at googleflights for single sectors (all separate tickets) gives: MEL-ICN $500, ICN-KTM $665, KTM-TLV $700, TLV-FRA $310, FRA-MEL $1000 = $3175 including all taxes

These are all full service carriers with free bags/food etc. Not cheap. The RTW out of SYD is cheaper.

With departure taxes from AU alone, the SYD RTW is going to be at least $3180, then there will be other departure taxes and possible fuel surcharges.

Actual fares may vary by day, but looking at kayak I can see fares cheaper than that as well could easily lop $750 off the fares you quote. MEL-ICN/FRA-MEL $1100, ICN-KTM $450, KTM-TLV $550, TLV-FRA $300 = $2400. Depends on whether full service carriers like China Eastern, Air India and Sri Lankan are OK or not.

 

[Bitten]

Thanks everyone! Really valuable information by all, we will take all of this on board!
Happy Travelling