ABX/MEL - BRU (possible return via MCO)

[horseman]

G'day all, chasing some flights to see my missus family for Xmas.
There will be 2 adults, no children travelling. We are in Albury (ABX) so would like to fly from here, however we can easily depart from Melbourne also if there is a cost advantage. Flying to Brussels airport (BRU).
We are flexible with dates, but looking to depart around the 20-21st of December and coming back to Australia around the 29-30th.
Now we were also thinking about (if we can afford it) leaving Brussels a day or two early and continuing on from Brussels to Orlando, to spend New Years with friends there before coming home. If we were to do that I guess we would be looking at leaving Orlando around the 4-5th of January.
Prefer to fly with one world, but not overly fussed on that as I have no status with QF anymore, and only around 50,000 QFF points.
Thanks

 

[Mattg]

How flexible are you with dates? Trying to fly to Europe the week before Christmas is always going to be expensive.

For your desired routing I think a QF multi-city booking is the most appropriate. A Qantas multi-city search shows ABX-BRU via SYD and DXB on 24 Dec, arriving midday 25 Dec. Next leg BRU-MCO on BA via LHR on 30 Dec. Last leg MCO-ABX via DFW and SYD on AA/QF any day. All up comes to $3293 each. Not too bad considering the time of year, if you are prepared to arrive on Christmas Day. Flying into Brussels one day earlier unfortunately adds $330 to the price, and flying earlier than that makes it even more expensive, sadly.

Looking at a few more options...
1. Book a return ticket to Europe and add-on a return trip from Brussels to Orlando.
2. Consider flying into Paris or Amsterdam and completing the journey to Brussels by train.
3. Fly via the USA in both directions - this will add a little bit of flying time but at the end of the day we're only talking 4-5 hours in total. Having said that I can't seem to find a routing via the USA at a good price for this time of year.

Looking at simple Australia - Europe routings, most seem to be around the $2,500 for travel before in the week before Christmas - not to be unexpected, I guess. If you do decide to skip Orlando, do have a look at Etihad flying Singapore - Brussels and returning Brussels - Sydney/Albury, and buying a separate one-way ticket to Singapore.

Edit: Searching from Melbourne, there seem to be some routings under the $2,000 mark (some as low as $1600-$1700) for the dates you want. Most of these fares require travel on numerous airlines and lengthy stopovers, but KLM flying MEL to AMS looks like a plausible option at a reasonable price.

Hope this was of some help to you.

I had a bit of a look though it seems the price will

 

[timon]

2. Consider flying into Paris or Amsterdam and completing the journey to Brussels by train.

Further to this, can get Garuda to Amsterdam for around $1420, although total travel time is around 30hours in each direction

 

[horseman]

Sorry to be slow following up on this, got on to some dirt cheap QF fares ( through they're website)
Good direct flights too

 

[Mattg]

Good to hear.

 

[support]

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