Flight Tickets

[dancealot]

Hi

 

It would be great if you could share how you secured good pricing on one way tickets to Australia.  I have heard of IOM.  Are there any other options or are they the best?  In your experience is it possible to secure tickets for half the price of a return ticket?

 

Thanks so much.

[JonathanR]

I have not done the comparisons but have heard that one way tickets and Round trip are similar in price. I just bought my family's tickets about an hour ago after doing various comparisons. I did not even bother phoning IOM because the comments I have been seeing on the forums are that the only benefit is the baggage allowance that you can get , however when I compared SAA & Emirates 46KG to IOM's 40KG the price difference people where getting did not make sense to me. I might be wrong but you need to investigate your options as well.

 

I selected Emirates because we are planning on taking only our suitcases and possibly 1-2 extra bags. Our tickets cost around R28000 (Sunday and Monday seems the cheapest days currently) and extra baggage costs R2900 per extra 23KG bag. SAA would have cost 38000 with 3900 per extra bag (R450 per bag to Perth and then A$70 per 5KG to Melbourne because the tickets would be international ones we pay international rates not Domestic and because the tickets are booked through SAA we cannot perform manage my booking on Quantas website and therefore they told me I would not be able to book extra baggage in advance and would then have to pay the per 5KG airport rate) and Quantas 38000 with 1233 per extra bag (At first it looked like Quantas was the winner until my wife and I realised they only provide 30KG normal allowance per person and this means having to buy additional extra baggage making Emirates the cheapest despite their large extra baggage charges.)

 

Hope this helps with your own investigation 

[RedPanda]

The only other advantage I can think of with IOM is that you can fly Qantas, so direct. That was very appealing for us, because it's already a very long flight, we just wanted it over with.

[Yuvi]

When we booked with them last year IOM's prices were actually the cheapest for the Qantas direct flight with the extra baggage.

Cheapest indirect was Emirates at that point.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Yuvi

[FromDurbs]

@JonathanRWe flew SAA and booked two extra suitcases at R450 each (so cheap).  We were also told by the travel agent that we needed to pay additional in Perth.  She never mentioned an amount and I kind of did not pay too much attention to it.  $70 per kg is quite steep.  However, the suitcases were booked right through and we did not pay anything additional.  I think their system cannot handle it because it is 2 separate airlines, but there is no indication once you arrived in Perth that the luggage needs to be paid for again.  Or maybe I was just lucky? 

[HopefulJo]

If you are a discovery vitality member you can also use that to book Qantas and Emirates flight through kulula.com. Depending on your status you can get some great discounts as well. 

[dancealot]

I really appreciate the responses.  Thank you.

[Husky]

Just adding to this thread if anyone is looking at buying one way air tickets. Got a R15100 per person quote from IOM for our end of year flights with Qantas (40 kgs pp). Thought that was a bit steep so started looking around and by accident saw a deal by Standard Bank on Emirates. Using your Standard Bank credit card, you get quite a big discount. Yes, the flights are much longer and you stop in Dubai, but given the need to save every penny at the moment, we went with it. Did I mention I have Scottish blood......? 

Leave on 30 December 2017 on Emirates with 46kg baggage pp - Price R6918 pp (4 adults as my kids are over 11). The travel agency that manages this for Standard Bank are in Durban and it does feel risky to send through a copy of your credit card. Still, everything came through and was done professionally and quickly. Spoke to Standard Bank and have checked Emirates website and all legit.

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