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China Southern: Melbourne or Sydney to London, Rome or Amsterdam via Guangzhou $995 - $1164 Return with Bags (Oct/Nov) @Momondo

1000

Excellent prices to Europe flying China Southern from Sydney or Melbourne.
FYI many of these have a long stop in Guangzhou in one or both directions, but remember you may be eligible for a free hotel room during your stopover.
Dates are limited, and are in late October & November 2023.

I like to click around on the calendar view in Google Flights to find dates that are working at these prices, and then search them in Momondo to get the best price.

Melbourne to Amsterdam $995
Melbourne to London $1143
Melbourne to Rome $1021

Sydney to Amsterdam $1016
Sydney to London $1164
Sydney to Rome $1034

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closed Comments

  • "FYI many of these have a long stop in Guangzhou in one or both directions, but remember you may be eligible for a free hotel room"
    Be sure that you are eligible for a Chinese 24/48/144 hour visa.

    • +4

      72 hour transit visa-on-arrival never been a problem for visitors travelling on an Australian passport. I usually stay at the Pullman Hotel at the airport after clearing customs.

      Been expanded to many other cities now and have done it myself at Beijing and Shanghai as well.

      • Yep AU passports are all clear, just for those who may not have an AU passport here and ended up being treated to Guangzhou Airport for a night.

        • I’ve heard if your layover is less than 24 hours they may not issue the short term visa. Anyone have experience with that? Tbh that was more a Shanghai thing than Guangzhou from reading Tripadvisor etc.

          • +1

            @MelbourneJames: I had a transit visa issued in Shanghai in 2020 to change terminals with 0 questions asked on a 5 hour layover.

          • +1

            @MelbourneJames: I flew China Southern in July,
            and for the <24 hour transit stay,
            a 24-hour visa was issued
            at Guangzhou Airport, for AU passport.

            So, no issues for the Visa.

            Just note that Immigration will take fingerprints of both hands,
            facial photo capture, etc… which is what many other countries are doing already.

            Also, there are CCTV cameras everywhere in the city,
            which is the same as in London.

            • @whyisave: Thanks! Very helpful.

              The process sounds less intrusive as Australia’s visa process to be honest 😁

  • +8

    When you say 'return with bags' on a trip to Amsterdam it might have a double meaning…

    • +1

      Though this is ozbargain and it's much cheaper over there…

    • Watch out, we're not even allowed to say (profanity) on here, let alone talk about drugs…

      • Yeah OzBargain is a bit moderated like that but obviously I am kidding. If Schapelle taught us anything…

        • Didn't he get cancelled for being transphobic?

  • +7

    Can you confirm these are actually bookable prices? Momondo redirects to Aunt Betty to make the booking.

    in the past I have found Aunt Betty would tell you in the last step of the booking process (after providing pax details, credit card number, etc) that the selected price was not available.

    • +3

      I can go all the way through on Aunt Betty to the page where I am inputting credit card details and the price is still $994.75 so yes, these are bookable prices :)

      • +1

        You need to actually go through with the payment to get that notification.

  • +10

    If you plan to transfer via China, make sure your phone have valid roaming data plan. The reasons are :

    1, China requires you to fill in a health statement form, which no paper version, you can only use your phone to scan the barcode to load the page….And you can’t use airport wifi as all wifis in China requires you have a China phone number to receive SMS to connect…
    2. The famous GFW… if you want to contact your family during waiting time, you’d better to use your phone roaming service…

    • +3

      We just transited in Guangzhou on our way to Japan. Scan the QR code right at the health screening station for free wifi.

      But agree with #2, WhatsApp and Facebook doesn’t work.

      • +1

        Whatsapp works as of today

        • Did China unblock WhatsApp?

    • +3

      Flew into Guangzhou recently and there is now wifi at arrival gates that can be accessed for completing the heath declaration. It’s locked down to that website only and so doesn’t need a Chinese number to access.

      Unfortunately there is no wifi available coming back into the airport for departures so I was stuck for an hour waiting in a crowd of tourists forced to used a public terminal which stored and displayed everyone’s personal details through the form’s autocomplete.

      Given the forms are valid for 24 hours after submission, you should complete both an incoming and departure form at the same time and screenshot both QR codes (assuming you’re not there for more than 24 hours).

      • Unfortunately there is no wifi available coming back into the airport for departures so I was stuck for an hour waiting in a crowd of tourists forced to used a public terminal which stored and displayed everyone’s personal details through the form’s autocomplete.

        This happened to me as well, and I was panicking a bit, as I close to missing my flight,
        but luckily my browser had cached the entire form, which I filled out when I arrived.

    • There's free WiFi at Guangzhou airport,
      just for the purpose of the health-statement form.

      Just that you'll have problems accessing Google services from within China,
      …well, I did a few months back.

  • Surfshark vpn didnt work for me in china. Anyone have experience with this?

    • +1

      My son used Surfshark in Shenzhen three months ago, and it worked sometimes. Try Shadowsocks. It's fast, stable, and cheap, but it's not data-safe, so I'd avoid using banking apps on it.

    • +1

      ExpressVPN and nordVPN didn’t work for me this month.

      • Interesting. NordVPN has previously never worked for me in China over 10+ trips, with the exception being my trip earlier this month where it worked better than any VPN before for me.

    • Google china vpn and get one of the recommended ones

      • +1

        The problem is that it changes all the time.

        • There's a couple that have been solid for a few years. Post dates confirm that. They're the expensive ones

          • @belongsinforums: im going to china in December…

            i haven't been there for 3 years.. but I sued to use express, but looks like that doesn't work anymore.. :|

    • nord did not work for me when I was in China this year

  • Best months to smoke weed in amstersdam is Oct/Nov

    • Ferkin cold af tho

    • +1

      Same time as in Australia!

      • Local drug dealer likes this comment

    • +1

      Why? Freezing. Dark. Time difference is shit so say hello to days of jetlag

      • -1

        Those are best times to get high

        • +1

          Walked into the da vinci museum high. Honestly wouldn't matter which season it was as it's all indoors. Freezing nights are kinda crap though because it's really far to walk in that cold and it was raining to boot

          • -1

            @belongsinforums: I've just found Amsterdam unpleasant at that time of year as you get kind of swirling wind chambers down the canals, and can't really escape the rain. The North Sea isn't really all that far away.

            Sure I've been places that are colder but I just find Amsterdam particularly annoying.

  • +11

    And yet Qantas is slugging Australian's $3k return for the same flight…

    So much for looking after the taxpayers that footed their covid bill only to get a slap in the face in return.

    • The airline is 100% losing a significant amount of money on these flights, enjoy the large handout from Chinese taxpayers instead.

      • +1

        What do they gain?

        It’s not like they are flying you to spend in their country or boost their economy.

        • Why is almost every international airline subsidised? There are benefits even if it's just transfers, eg growing the airport as a hub, increasing connectivity, etc.

          Precovid airlines like Qatar and Etihad were running at a loss doing $1600 return trips to Europe from Melbourne (both seem to be shifting away from running big losses now, that's why Etihad has shrunk so much), add the inflation of the last few years and I'd be surprised if anything below $2k return to Europe from Melb/Syd isn't a loss maker. $1k definitely is.

          • +2

            @CheapBrah: Honestly, after flying a chinese airline, the inflight service is on a different level. Would be happy to fly chinese airlines again.
            The only let down is the inflight entertainment with two dozen movies to watch but slept most of the way back to care.

      • Theyll balance the sale fares out with normal fares. The flight will even out

    • -1

      Qantas International demographics, especially on its most premium routes - are not usually leisure travelers.
      Cathay Pacific, Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, United, ANA (8k), Japan Airlines ($9k), Asiana, Korean Air, Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways and others is no different, charging around the same or more. It is true that some of these carriers are better than QF.

      Most major corporations including the one I work for, have special agreements that lock us into QF/EK. And honestly, I'm fine with it. I have done nearly 100 QF sectors this year and I wouldn't change it. Their Business Hard/Soft Product on Trans-Cons (ex MEL/SYD) is the best in the Australian aviation industry. And their international business hard product is also one of the best on the market believe me or not (look at Emirates 777s 2-3-2 Business Class and their unreferb A380s). Qantas' soft product across all cabins could do with a refresh, a major one at its best but I still find the cabin crew to be superb and attentive.

      Now the cost? Sure its high but then again - 90% of us business travelers don't pay for our own tickets - our travel accounts and company pay for our tickets. I have easily gone through half a million dollars' worth of flying this year in last minute Flexible Business (J/C) and International last-minute Flexible First/Business tickets.

      Travellers who have this kind of money to do this for leisure, stopped flying Qantas in 2019. Plain and simple, Qatars Qsuite product is the best business product in the sky. And cheaper than Qantas from 365 days from departure all the way down to 3 hours from departure. Even in International economy, a lot of Australians have given up on Qantas, which they did so pre-covid. Domestically? No. Qantas is the only full service mainline carrier in Australia. (After Virgin remodeled into becoming a hybrid low cost carrier/full service during administration) - but Qantas has a monopoly on domestic routes. Plain and simple. Why cant Virgin fill up? Because they dont have the cashflow/revenue to support major expansion in a low time frame. And Rex? From 2 days ago, they are reducing services within Australia on their 737 platform due to "Qantas pillaging", whilst operating 737 flights to Melbourne from SYD…..at a 30-40% load factor and selling cheap business class tickets up to 48 hours from departure. Its a bs excuse. And then theres Bonza, an interesting LLC. Whilst they are obtaining a foot in the industry, they cant face Jetstars competition and traveler base.

      Bonza complains about QF slots in Sydney. Frankly these gate slots are all at Terminal 3, Qantas territory. Where Qantas has an indefinite agreement with Sydney Airport that all flights operated out of Terminal 3 are ONLY Qantas flights. All technology and infrastructure is all Qantas - all linked.
      Runway slots are also hogged by Virgin, they also have frequently cancelled flights between MEL-SYD every day.

      Economy can have some good sales, the last sale was $1,799 in economy return from Australia - London. And imo thats where Qantas has a traveler base, not in Flexible Economy Leisure but advance Sale fares. And to which they can request using QFF points an upgrade into Premium or Business.

      Qantas took about $3bn in COVID-19 relief packages and job-seeker payouts. Out of $297bn. That 297 billion also went to foreign mega companies that has branches in Australia such as Rio-Tino, BHP, Singtel and others. And even to our mega companies in Australia like the banking sector which took about 20bn in total. How much did the banking sector make this year? $60bn of total annualized pre tax profits. Thanks to jacking up mortgages and keeping interest accounts low. But key, at least Qantas so graciously shared its $2.5bn profit - about 800m to the ATO as corporate tax.

      But also look at Qantas. If you think fares are so expensive, and people shouldnt fly the carrier. Why does QF9/10 have a 98%+ load factor over the past 5 years. And QF1/2 post covid with a 95%+ load factor.

      Thanks for my TED talk, if you are going to ask how you have the time to write this. You can track QF9 from MEL-PER.

  • +1

    Has anyone successfully booked a transit hotel after booking a ticket? Can't seem to find my booking on the website

    • +1

      I have, but pre covid. I think I just did at the airport in Guangzhou on arrival. But, just call them. Annoying but then you can be sure.

      • I managed to find my booking, but it said my ticket was ineligible for a transit hotel.. not sure what the criteria are other than what's stated on the site. Any idea how to reach them? I can only find Chinese support numbers

        • +1

          This is from google: For reservations and ticketing. Please contact China Southern Airlines Sydney Office on 1300 889 628 or [email protected]

          • @CheapFlightHunter: Got it, thanks for that. Turns out my ticket is class T which is not eligible. Bummer.

            • @subbeh: That is a bummer. I reckon you could still hook it up at the airport when you land in Guangzhou.

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