The Gap Kid who Stayed

[kangaroova]

Hello Fellow FFlyers

I was a ff for many years on the canberra, sydney, melbourne "bus" but now find myself a single parent with my youngest boy loving London so much that he stayed for a second year! sans girlfriend "i dont want to come home Dad"

i have about 240,000 qantas points and a qantas club member

Any clues as to how Dad can get back and forward to London in the most economical way would be most appreciated? i can travel at any times through the year.

The other thing I do for my sins is organise acess to Aboriginal homelands so anyone who has ideas about how to crack the Air North monopoly into Gove would be most appreciated!

Thank you its great to be a community member

Peter

 

[TomVexille]

Welcome aboard!

 

[dk4]

The other thing I do for my sins is organise acess to Aboriginal homelands so anyone who has ideas about how to crack the Air North monopoly into Gove would be most appreciated!

Well not like this Airnorth threatens to ban passengers who book Darwin to Cairns tickets to get off at Gove | Business News | Business and Finance News | | NT News the TL rip-off merchants are onto it! And welcome to AFF too.

 

[kangaroova]

Thanks so much for the illuminating article from NT News on the Gove flights.. Yes the closure of the Alumina refinery at Nhulunbuy and the departure of Qantas as a primary carrier has created great hardship for the wonderful people of NE Arnhem land.. Now the best way to get to Arnhem land is simply to go to Darwin and hire a 4WD!!?? Its cheaper and that is what I am now doing with my tours. It means that the town is deprived of income in so many different ways at exactly the wrong time.. Air North are charging similarly tough prices for their East Timor flights.. again another fantastic destination.. subject to the dictates of the airline industry.

If fflyers want to do a fantastic traditional cultural tour of NE Arnhem land just contact me.. we are planning trips to coincide with the Aboriginal seasons 8 times per annum

P

 

[pagingjoan]

Hello Fellow FFlyers

I was a ff for many years on the canberra, sydney, melbourne "bus" but now find myself a single parent with my youngest boy loving London so much that he stayed for a second year! sans girlfriend "i dont want to come home Dad"

i have about 240,000 qantas points and a qantas club member

Any clues as to how Dad can get back and forward to London in the most economical way would be most appreciated? i can travel at any times through the year.

The other thing I do for my sins is organise acess to Aboriginal homelands so anyone who has ideas about how to crack the Air North monopoly into Gove would be most appreciated!

Thank you its great to be a community member

Peter

Welcome, kangaroova.
Where are you located now?

 

[kangaroova]

Home office Kangaroo Valley NSW.. two hours from Sydney, two hours from Canberra.. half way in other words..

 

[Buzzard]

Welcome to AFF kangaroova.
I have many fond memories of The Valley, riding my motorbike to the pub when living in SYD then popping in to see friends living in KV.

 

[kangaroova]

Yep the pub is still the bikie hangout.. on weekends..

 

[Danger]

My tip would be to use your points to fly to and from Asia (eg. Singapore or Kuala Lumpur) and then get a proportionately cheaper return fare between there and London. SriLankan Airlines often has super competitive fares ex-Singapore via Colombo and MH can have good fares via Kuala Lumpur. It would also probably be worth your while to fly into Paris or maybe Frankfurt to reduce the cost of the hefty UK taxes.

 

[kangaroova]

My tip would be to use your points to fly to and from Asia (eg. Singapore or Kuala Lumpur) and then get a proportionately cheaper return fare between there and London. SriLankan Airlines often has super competitive fares ex-Singapore via Colombo and MH can have good fares via Kuala Lumpur. It would also probably be worth your while to fly into Paris or maybe Frankfurt to reduce the cost of the hefty UK taxes.

Thanks so much for that tip.. I am completely green on all this so most helpful...

P

 

[Mattg]

Welcome aboard. A few tips for getting to London cheaply:

1. Using points - you have almost enough for a return trip to London and back in business class on Qantas or Emirates. For that you need 256,000 points. But I put it to you that there is a better use for those points - for 280,000 you can fly around the world on oneworld airlines, with up to 5 stopovers (over more than 24 hours) and up to 35,000 miles. So, you could travel via Asia or even South Africa, and return via the Americas if you wanted with this option. If you're interested, I suggest reading this thread: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ogram/oneworld-award-140k-280k-420k-8228.html

2. Cheaply in economy - one of the absolute cheapest ways to get to Europe in economy is by first positioning to Singapore (e.g. on a cheap Scoot ticket), then flying EY to Europe, and back to SYD or MEL (via AUH both ways). When you depart Europe, do NOT leave from the UK as this adds a few hundred dollars in UK departure taxes. Instead, I find Dublin works well.

3. Cheaply in business - as I think someone else mentioned, if you can first position to Singapore, Sri Lankan airlines (and a few others) have some excellent value return fares from Asia to Europe in business class. Again, do not depart Europe from the UK!

Oh, and I don't blame your son for wanting to stay in Europe for longer. I did a gap year over there last year and it was fantastic!

 

[pagingjoan]

Was about to post some options - but I see that others have been quicker and have given excellent tips.

Happy planning, kangaroova. (Do like that username. )