Flights to Australia – 10 important factors to consider other than price
Before booking flights to Australia, consider factors such as arrival time, airline service, visas and layover time as well as price.
Flights to Australia: Good flight deals
The purpose of Australiaflightbargains.com is to draw attention to good flight deals from the UK to Australia and, as a result, it usually concentrates on the cheapest prices.
But there is more to consider than just the cheapest flight price – and cheapest deal doesn’t necessarily mean the best deal.
There are other factors to consider when booking flights to Australia – and here are ten of the most important.
- Departure time: What time of the day does your flight from the UK to Australia leave? If it’s very early in the morning, will public transport be running? If not, the cost of airport parking or a taxi comes into play. Also, do you really want to be doing a 24-hour flight after a shortened night’s sleep?
- Length of journey: Some routes to Australia take considerably longer than others. For example, if you just want a direct London to Sydney flight, it will be quicker going via the Middle East than Japan or South Africa.
- Arrival time: Many flights arrive into Australia in the early morning (think 6am or 7am). In terms of beating jetlag, this is horrendous – it means you have to try and stay up all day after 24 hours on a plane. The best flights arrive in the early evening. This gives you a couple of hours to exhaust your second wind, before you crash into bed at the right time for the destination.
- Airline seats: Some airlines have considerably more comfortable seats than others. And those who don’t like being reclined into should consider paying a bit more to fly with Cathay Pacific. The Hong Kong-based airline has seats which slide forward rather than recline back. So if you want to sit back at an angle, you take your own leg room rather than that of the person behind you.
- In-flight entertainment: A 24 hour flight without a seatback screen and decent selection of films, games and TV shows can be purgatory. More to the point, when there is no seat back screen, the movie playing on the big screen can provide an extra light source that keeps you awake.
- Airline service: Do you like to have an alcoholic drink or two whilst on the plane? Well you may wish to avoid Royal Brunei Airlines – which often has the cheapest deals – as it is a dry airline. You can take your own alcohol on board, but they will not serve you their own as other airlines do.
- Layover length: Too short – less than two hours – and you can end up with a stressful race through the transit airport or having a day’s delay if the first leg of the flight is late. Too long and it’s a horrendous, jet-lag exacerbating wait on uncomfortable airport seats. The ideal layover is probably either two to three hours or more than twelve. With the latter, you can at least get out of the airport and have a whistlestop look at the city you’re in.
- Stopovers: Are you just going to Australia? Or is where you stop on the way for a few days an important part of your holiday? The location of your stopover limits your choice of flights – very few airlines offer flights to Australia via anywhere other than their main hub. Check out Australiaflightbargains.com’s full list of stopover destinations to see which airlines go to Australia via where.
- Stopover visas: Some stopover destinations – most notably Vietnam, China and India – require you to apply in advance for a visa. This means more forward planning and extra cost.
- Internal flights: Are you going to just one location in Australia? Or will you be taking a few flights around the country? If the latter, it might be worth booking them all as a package before you leave – which means flying with an airline that also offers internal flights through a partner (such as British Airways, Qantas or Virgin Atlantic). Otherwise, make sure you investigate and book domestic flights early to get the best prices with Australia’s budget airlines.
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[...] touched on this briefly in my post about other factors to consider when booking a flight to Australia, but there is a way of using a long layover to your [...]