flight price/quote dublin <-> australia (melbourne/syd

[ioki]

howdy all,

friends of my is planning their first trip to australia. they live in dublin and is looking at late dec 2005 departure and return in the middle of jan 2006.

can anyone recommend decent travel agent/s or online search engines he can utilise/pay in dublin?

thank you in advance

ioki

 

[serfty]

Re: flight price/quote dublin <-> australia (melbourne

... is looking at late dec 2005 departure and return in the middle of jan 2006. ...

If your friends are looking for discounted fares to Oz, that's a really tough time of year to find any.

 

[AlwaysUpThere]

"Trailfinders" often have great fares to Oz. They're probably the biggest leisure agent in the UK/Ireland.

www.trailfinders.com

4/5 Dawson Street, DUBLIN


Opodo is the "Zuji" of Europe: http://www.opodo.co.uk/

The other option is to buy a "reverse net" fare in Australia. Some airlines (like Cathay) offer them for Australians to bring relatives out. In the high/peak seasons, often they are cheaper! You'll have to call the airline directly though, and they would have to send you the money - which isn't hard these days.

Good luck.

 

[ioki]

my mate sent me some quots and i also had some interesting results from own searching last night.

he has a quote from trailfinder in dublin and their schedule is like:

DUB -> CDG -> SIN -> MEL (24/12/2005)
MEL -> SIN (17/01/2006)
SIN -> CDG -> DUB (19/01/2006)

this comes to a total of ~3k euro for 2 pax incld tax/chgs.

i first had a look at both AF and EI online on return between DUB and CDG while matching the dates and came away with ~300 euro/2 pax inc. tax/chgs

thought, this is not a bad start.

as i didn't know about opodo, the only other site i knew that did international instant fares was zuji and thought i'd try that,

i also had a go at return between SIN and MEL on qantas and got ~650euro/pax inc. tax/chrgs

so i tried CDG and SIN initially on zuji and returned ~1100 USD/pax which wasn't the most ideal ad the total price is now way over 3000 euro

so now on zuji between CDG and MEL and again, the total includ DUB <-> CDG is slightly more than trailfinder and at this point i had thought, yes.. their price isn't too bad.

i then tried SQ site as i thought i had read on FT that it can produce some interesting results.

SQ site gave ~2350euro/2pax for the exact same flight/date as trailfinder so all of a suddan, i've managed to save them some 300 euro overall (add DUB <-> CDG) and i also noticed if they leave a day later (xmas day), it'll be ~170 euro cheaper.

on a ending note, i suggsted to them to inbound into australia at melbourne and outbound at sydney as they will drop by and visit us while in australia and this will save them the single fare between SYD and MEL.

from the SQ site, departure via sydney adds a whole 6 euro to the ticket!

nonetheless, thx a million for the suggetions.

i'll give opodo a go later on today and have told my friend that they could always taking the quotes now back to trailfinder and see if they are willing to beat or match the price.

does AF and SQ transfer luggages?