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China Southern: Tokyo Return from Melbourne $575, Sydney $601 (Feb-Apr) via Guangzhou @ Beat That Flight

1570

Full service, 4-star airline including 2x23kg checked luggage, to Tokyo, Japan. Flights from Melbourne from $575, and Sydney from $601. Return. Including much of the sakura season, as well as Easter 2024!

Also see the competing Air China post.

The cherry blossom or sakura is never perfectly predictable, but some early predictions are below:

A friend has a video series on the 10 Best Cherry Blossom Sakura Spots in Japan - Tokyo, Yamanashi! [4K] (CC)

Destination First bloom Full bloom
Kochi March 17 March 25
Kumamoto March 19 March 28
Hiroshima March 26 April 3
Kyoto March 26 April 4
Nagoya March 24 April 1
Kanazawa March 31 April 6
Tokyo March 19 March 26
Matsumoto April 2 April 11
Fuji Five Lakes April 2 April 10
Sendai March 31 April 6
Hirosaki April 20 April 26
Hakodate April 26 May 3

As such, I've compiled dates before and after Easter in 2024.

I also have an article on the top 5 most popular hotels in Tokyo for under $120.

Sydney to Tokyo on China Southern

Dates: 13 Feb 24 - 30 Apr 24

Melbourne to Tokyo on China Southern

Dates: 13 Feb 24 - 30 Apr 24

You can follow us at Beat That Flight for more deals, error fares, promos and sales, on Youtube, on Facebook, or on Google News.

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closed Comments

  • +9

    Never BNE :(

    • +4

      They actually do fly ex BNE, but I couldn't find anything under a grand! Cheaper to just grab a flight down to SYD/MEL then out.

      • +3

        Cheaper but not as pleasant/convenient. Especially as you need to allow time for checkin, bag drop/retrieval and security screen for both flights. Whilst the actual flight to Sydney is only 90mins it probably adds 3hrs each way to total travel time to do this.

        • +2

          Exactly right. This is a great deal but I'll happily wait for an ex BNE one.

          BNE SYD gets even worse if the domestic leg is cancelled and rebooked on you at the last minute, as happened to me.

    • +2

      IKR! We rarely get any good flight deals here….

        • +1

          Yeah, $hit star still owes me for a hotel overnight as the Pilots for my flight back to brizzy, Both where not 'Cleared' for duty In Narita.
          Apparently they did not pass the D&A tests.
          Never again with this Mob.. Never!

  • +54

    Including lay over, fastest is 27 hours from Sydney. Yikes!!!

    • +12

      Thanks for saving me some time to click for informations.

    • There are a few Sydney flights at 15 hours, but also 31 hours! Not for those in a hurry.

    • +5

      The total flight time is actually a really important consideration.

      I appreciate you bringing these deals to our attention @beatthatflight, perhaps in the future you could consider including information on the shortest possible flight times with your deals?

  • The flight I’m looking at lands in China at 5.50pm flight to Tokyo doesn’t leave till 8.15am. Can we leave the airport I assume, book a hotel or do they cover this! Can’t see details anywhere

    • +7

      If you are using an Australian Passport (and many other nationalities) you can leave the airport under the free 24/48/72/144 hour visa scheme.

      • where do you find this information?

        • Chinese consulate / embassy has all the details - if you need exact breakdowns and experiences of what eveyrthing means the various flyer forums have lots of people with real life experience of the visas.

    • +1

      They'll provide one night hotel room and transfers.

      • Where did u find this info?

      • They used to do this for all tickets but have scaled it back to exclude the cheapest fares now. That said, budget accommodation is fairly cheap in Guangzhou anyway

      • Do you know if the one night hotel room and transfers is valid with these tickets purchased through a third party. Or must tickets be purchased via China Southern direct? Do you know if there a way to check this?

    • better get a visa before landing in guanhzhou, you can do the transit visa thing, but the counter and waiting areas are always empty. People reported needs to wait for hours for processing

      • +2

        100% this, flying china southern through to europe a few years ago, the wait to get out of the airport pretty much used up the entire lay over time and its a very tedious process. Even using China southerns free hotel room and transfers the bulk of the time was spent waiting for temp visa and then waiting in the transfer area.

      • I think you'll find transiting through China very different now to precovid. (It's a lot quieter).

        I went through Shanghai recently myself and it was dead - 0 people in queue. Friend went through GZ to shanghai and similarly, fairly empty.

        • Well I passed through the airport the other day on my flight to Vietnam. it was literally so dead so yeah I thibk it's empty atm All the shops had nothin no nobody beside staff… you'll only see people waiting at security gate for transfer and very few people who are exiting

  • +14

    Meanwhile I just wanna fly to Guangzhou and it's 1.2k…

    • -2

      That where Winnie the Pooh at

    • try looking at the other chinese airlines, the fact that you have to transit makes the other chinese airlines cheaper generally.

  • +6

    You'll need a day or two to recover after each of these long flights 😂

  • +9

    Third party website booking + long hour transit in mainland China with Chinese airlines…. No.

    • I’m a bit weary of these 3rd party websites too but don’t mind the transit. Can anyone comment on the booking experience? Would it be better booking and dealing directly with the airline?

      • +9

        It's always better to book directly with the airline, especially in the case of getting refunds or changing flights when possible

      • People here are sooks. Just don't make mistakes booking and don't need to change flights/refund and it's a no brainer for the savings. Just make sure to pay with the preferred payment method if you can ( this can change day to day)

        Some of the online agents are worse than others, but looks like the cheap flights here are from Flightnetwork/Mytrip which are owned by same parent.

  • Bali 2

    • +5

      Japan is pretty cheap man. But you should take 5 minutes to look. Check out a few stay places, booking.com etc etc.

      Food can be insanely cheap too.

      • This is not my experience so far whilst trying to organise accommodation! $$$

        • Tokyo accommodation? Yea not the cheapest but not horrible. But pretty much everywhere else I stayed on my Japan trip was pretty good.

          Everywhere was tiny though. But that's also how they just live.

    • Lit

    • Why is this downvoted so much lol

      • I don't know :( I just express my desire to live in Japan for a bit… a month seems fun

        • Do it dude you won't regret it

          • @Andard: Yeah! Idk if my mum will let me… Maybe I'll go for a week instead!! Or hopefully two weeks?

            • @AndrewMTG: At least 2 weeks. You need to recover from the long travel + stopover

    • +2

      Accomodation depends heavily on what you can tolerate. 12-15sqm room by yourself? ~100-150 per night in tokyo. 20-25sqm? 200-250
      Bed in dorm? $50-80.

      Don't want to be in tokyo? you can get the same for significantly cheaper in a city like Sendai or Nagoya. for the same 12-15sqm it'd generally be $80-120 in Sendai.

      Food is cheaper than here by comparison. anything over $15 a meal means you're eating very well. you could live by on less than $10 a day if you really wanted to with supermarket discounted meals.

      • -1

        How far is Sendai or Nagoya… Can I live there and train to the city of tokyo easily?

        • There's a huge wealth of resources about Japan these days. I would highly recommend looking various things up that are relevant to your circumstances first.

      • My issue is fam of 4…either pay for two non-adjoining rooms or 1 tiny room for over $300 for 3 star. First time so worried about AirBnB, apartments, etc.

  • +2

    Can I just get off at Guangzhou?

    • Not really

    • You could but I suspect you wouldn't be allowed on the return flight

    • Maybe just with hand luggage only,
      and you will forfeit the rest of the plane ticket.

      In fact, some U.S. airlines record this against your name, as a misdemeanor.

    • lol yeah good thinking its cheaper that way. But honestly cheaper than going direct flight, so you are correct

  • +1

    Wow damn cheap

  • OP - any guesses when sales for December/January will be advertised?

  • -1

    4-Star Airline, but feels more like a 3 star, from my experience

    • Airlines aren't rated like hotels..

    • I see negative vote on my comment, that's my personal experience and it may differ to others.
      We took a flight with China Southern, about 10hr journey, the attendant served room temperature drinks and ran out of ice in the first 3hrs of flight.
      Food was served barely warm.
      Attendant calls were ignored.
      Based on this experience, I would say Jetstar has been much better in my personal experience.

      • The food was good . I got small sandwiches from Australia like ten times (free) and still got my usual meals and asked for extras they gave it as well! YMMW

    • +1

      I honestly taking any rating for airlines with a grain of salt. Qatar is 5* but you can also get a 3* (or even lower sometimes) qatar product if you fly from the subcontinent for example.

  • Fares with long transit times are really not deals. Anything over a few hours is excruciating.

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