Request for assistance - Sydney to London on a budget with family

[derepats]

Hi there

So having found this forum and read a number of the experts information I'm hoping that you wont mind helping out with my scenario.

I’m planning a first overseas family trip - for early sept 2011 - you can never get on to these things too soon.

The agenda will be to get to London and Munich over a 3 week period around early sept and we (the parents) will be travelling with a 4 yr old and 18mth old. As you can image budget and convenience are pretty important with that combination

So the advice I'm seeking is around
(a) How to get the lowest airfare Sydney to London.. Are there any tricky ways to book?
(b) Should I try and include Munich in the original ticket or as a separate side trip with say Lufthansa
(c) we'd love premium economy but the budget may keep us in Economy
(d) we'd ideally like to fly Qantas on the basis this is what we know .... but hey..

Greatly appreciate the advice that anyone may have and the time taken to share it.

Cheers!
Family of 4

 

[NM]

If you are looking for the lowest cost, then you are unlikely to end up travelling on Qantas. They charge a premium for departures from Australia because many people are willing to pay a premium price to fly Qantas. Consider the Asia or Middle East airlines for the lowest cost options. Airlines such as Malaysia Airlines, Etihad, Emirates, Qatar etc often have the cheapest deals.

September is a popular time for travel to Europe as its the end of their nice weather. So that means the sale fares either get snapped up quickly or are not offered in the first place.

Watch the usual media publications for specials - newspapers etc.

 

[PaulC83]

Sometimes they (Qantas) have specials to Frankfurt (FRA), and I once got a good deal flying Sydney->Frankfurt, and then used British Airways (for Frequent Flyer reasons) FRA->LHR.

If you did this then I would recommend just using the train to get to Munich, you see more, and is generally cheaper (and more fun).

I wouldn't get too cut up about using Qantas specifically, especially if you don't have/are not chasing status. There are a lot of good deals out there and certainly airlines offering them to have a good product (and you can often get stopovers thrown in with them if getting them as a package deal, which can be good to break up the trip a little).

As NM said September is a fairly busy time of the year, so if a special does come up I would recommend booking it as early as possible, many a people have held out too long and lost out.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

One option would be to consider a fare using Lufthansa for part of the journey as that would enable you to fly non-stop SIN/MUC (Munich) or vv which would be preferable when travelling with small children.

The LH website has several combinations of flight routings that offer QF or SQ SYD/SIN, QF SYD/TYO, TG SYD/BKK or UA SYD/SFO with connections ex Asia or the US on LH to Germany and then on to LON.

If travelling LH you should be able to get the flights to/from LON included and have a stopover in Asia one way & Germany on the way back for example.

Don't forget that with most airfares if you have a surface sector between two cities it counts as one stopover so you could fly LON/MUC get the train then fly FRA/SIN etc. It's important to find out how many stopovers you can have on the fare too.

Why not fly SYD/SIN stopover for a night, fly SIN/FRA/LON, stay a week or so, then fly LHR/MUC for another week. At the end of your trip you could either fly LH ex Germany to Asia then your choice of carrier Asia to SYD or maybe fly back via the USA as LH codeshare with UA.

I would ring LH in Australia on 1 300 655 727 and ask the cost of airfares for the time you're going & when you'd need to pay for them. From memory Jun/Jul/Aug was high season, 01-15 Sep high shoulder season, then 16-30Sep low shoulder & the date of departure ex Aust determines the seasonality of the airfare.

 

[Katie]

We took our 18 month old with us to Europe in 2008. We bought tickets for here from BNE-LHR, but did not have tickets for London-Paris-Rome-Venice-Dusseldorf-London. This was not a problem, short flights, she was OK on our laps. Until we got to Venice and our Lufthansa flights to Germany - we got hit for excess luggage, and had to pay EURO 200 for her suitcase and stroller. We probably should have been charged for excess on other flights, but BA and Air France didn't.

In hindsight, travelling with 3 suitcases & a stroller, I wouldn't scrimp on seats for her if we did that again (apart from the fact that now, she's old enough that she must have a seat, but if we went back in time, yada, yada). I'd also maybe try to just have two suitcases, but I'm one of those people who find it really, really hard to pack lightly.

Oh, and for an 18mth old - definitely take a kiddy backpack (the kind you can carry a bigger kid in, and they look over your head). This was essential for getting around airports, as we didn't want to deal with the stroller, and some of our wandering around during the days.

 

[Flashback]

I could recommend going from FRA-Munich via Train the cheap way (using the Bayern ticket) but given the age of the kids might not be worth doing.

FWIW it works out to be 7.15 Euro from Frankfurt Flughafen to Kahl (Main), then you are in the Bavaria region of Germany (Bayern is German for Bavaria) and can use the Bayern ticket. The Bayern ticket gives you unlimited travel in the Bavaria region of Germany from 9am to 3am (I think) the next day on all transport forms. It takes about 5-6 hours doing this to get down to Munich, but very cost effective.

I recently did it and found it a nice relaxed way to get down to Munich, even if you do have to change trains twice; it was very easy.

 

[kiwitripper64]

I had friends with 2 kids ( 5+3)fly from AKL to LHR on Royal Brunei. It was cheapest option and they said all went well.
2 problems.
1. I dont think they fly out of Sydney, so you would need to get a cheap flight to Brisbane.
2. No alcohol served on flight

Have you thought about transit through Singapore with the kids. Take 2 tired grumpy kids, add the outdoor swimming pool at the airport and instant happy. You just need to check what age they let kids into the pool etc.

 

[medhead]

I could recommend going from FRA-Munich via Train the cheap way (using the Bayern ticket) but given the age of the kids might not be worth doing.

I recently did it and found it a nice relaxed way to get down to Munich, even if you do have to change trains twice; it was very easy.

Flashware has found an excellent way to get from Frankfurt to Munich. But I would suggest avoiding transfers as much as possible. I travelled around Europe with a 6 and 3 year old and train transfers where very much the most stressful part if the journey. The main problems were in France and the Germans are much more efficient. That efficiency can mean short transfer times and also changing platforms which can be slow going with a child.

Sound advice to minimize luggage numbers as well. It would very much be a case of one person getting the kids on the train and the other has to do the luggage. In our case my wife would get the kids on and leave me to deal with the luggage and we had way too much. Luckily my mum was also there to help and she got on and I would pass suitcases to her.

The chunnel is also a good option for getting from Europe to London, even from Germany, maybe 7 hours and 3 trains from munich. (yes i'm breaking my don't transit advice) You might also consider that in combination with a rail pass. The value of a rail pass is really variable. So you would need to carefully compare the costs of a pass vs separately purchased tickets.

In terms of flights I would also suggest flying into Munich, with one of the airlines mentioned. Or frankfurt if using qantas. Generally I'd expect both to be less popular destinations from Oz, hence potentially cheaper.

Do buy a seat if possible for the baby. Not only for the luggage benefits but also for the extra seat.

 

[browski]

Maybe....

Sydney-coughet on JetStar
coughet - Munich on Air Berlin
Munich - London on EasyJet

London-Kuala Lumpur-MEL/OOL on Air Asia

Or do the entire trip in reverse order.
It would be horrendous, but it would be cheap.

My preferred option would be to do the entire trip on EK, SQ, EY or possibly even TG. You'd only then need to sort out your LON-MUC leg separately. Maybe the fact that SQ flies from MUC-MAN would be a deciding factor.

 

[UP4014]

Jetstar to Japan, then you can choose someone suitable from there.

 

[dezza]

I would also suggest flying from Singapore as there are many airlines flying to Europe from there for around $1000 AUD return (sometimes less). In my experience Qatar is the best in terms of quality of service, connections and fair prices. Also good for openjaw tickets.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I would also suggest flying from Singapore as there are many airlines flying to Europe from there for around $1000 AUD return (sometimes less). In my experience Qatar is the best in terms of quality of service, connections and fair prices. Also good for openjaw tickets.

The only thing to keep in mind with Qatar is the airport is undergoing renovations & you may not arrive/depart from an aerobridge. Friends of mine found this inconvenient when travelling with an infant as they had to get a bus from the first flight to the terminal & back again which took 20 minutes plus waiting around to get off the bus.

You'd probably find travelling on a non-stop flight Asia to London or Germany and vv a lot more convenient IMHO.