Hello,
I have been Googling flights from Darwin to Manchester return departing mid December and returning by the 4/5th of January 2020. I realise it’s a costly time of year being holidays and all that. Does anyone have any ideas how I could get a cheaper price? Specific search terms for Google or any hacks you may know of?
I am really seeing a pattern in the kind of comments you make
Stating the glaring obvious? Why yes.
OP wants to fly over Christmas/new year/school holiday period and wonders why its not cheap, then goes on to answer their own question.
Well duh!
You've got more chance of doing a whole weeks shopping on the self checkout service without getting "Unattended Item In Bagging Area"
any hacks you may know of?
I know how to get 11 McDonald's hamburgers for free but not sure how that helps.
I know how to get 11 McDonald's hamburgers for free
How's that pickup line workin for ya? 😂
There will be some price movement, but that's quite a journey with neither being main airports in UK/AU. It's going to be expensive, but Id track skyscanner/kayak prices for a while say 2 months and book at the lowest over that period. You will probably find it easier to look for a Heathrow flight instead of Manchester, and fly on Easyjet etc.
Good idea I’ll try Heathrow and see what the cost is. Thanks :).
If you don't mind making a bit of a detour, you could use Google Flights for the dates to see if there are any nearby airports that are close but cheaper, then make your way to Manchester from there.
I’m going to try other airports :)
I've flown to Europe regularly over the past 6 years, often getting there late Nov, or early to mid-Dec. Prices jump up once you go from Nov 20 -> Dec 1 so I'd often fly out in the last couple of days of Nov and save a bit, but that won't help you if you're going mid Dec.
The only other thing I noticed was that prices would often reduce gradually in the couple of months prior to departure, right up until about a week before when they'd rapidly climb again, so I'd often wait until 10 days before I wanted to leave before booking flights. Probably not gonna work mid-Dec though, sorry.
As others have suggested, Skyscanner is your friend here - check regularly and be ready to jump on any deal you come across. Also wouldn't hurt to give a few travel agencies a call, if for no other reason than to suss out some comparative pricing.
Maybe try booking a multi stop trip say Darwin to Jakarta/Bali/Singapore/KL then booking a european return flight from there.
I sometimes go aus-amsterdam-uk because it works out cheaper.
I know lots of tricks
Use monondo, kyack, hipmunk and skyscanner to find the cheapest price (easy/obvious)
Use flightfox to get a flight expert to see try and beat your flights (they sometimes use ‘fuel dumping’ techniques)
Fly to to Southeast Asia (on scoot or air asia), then to Europe.
Norwegian Air goes directly from BKK to Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen
Scoot goes from SIN to Athens. Then catch a cheap low cost carrier to Manchester
I know other tricks too, but trick number three is likely to be the best. Use Wikipedia to see which airports service which direct routes to (SE Asia - Europe) then find prices on the actual airlines website. With low cost airlines, it’s always cheaper direct.
You could try searching for return flights DRW - SIN, then SIN - MAN.
Another option would be getting cheap scoot flights to ATH or TXL, then cheap flight to MAN.
I'd also say look at flying in/out of Rome or Paris, then getting a cheap flight to Manchester. The UK government charges a huge departure tax for flights out of England.
Skyscanner is really all you got. No real ways around it unless you have points to use or get lucky and manage to get a ticket on sale