[canucklad]

Hi Steve…..

Recently signed up for Airfare watchdog with my specific details and occasinaly they e-mail with their deal hound results……

I noticed you can filter business class as a preffered choice

Part of the trip advisor family so should be kosher !

Maybe not useful for upcoming trip, but definately an option for end of year flights….

[MartynSinclair]

Hi Steve

I found the reverse recently, the madness being that I managed to get 2 ex London BKK trips for £1800 on BA. Usually I am quite happy to go ex-Europe but for me its very novel going ex-London.

However, I do find you get far more ticket flexibility before and after departure with ex-Europe (usually Milan for me) tickets.

[scott66]

Hi Steve,

I’m in the same spot as you, a couple of months ago I booked a return business seat to the Far East via HKG on Cathay for just over £2.5k, It looks like I need to go back again, I can’t find a seat on Cathay for less than £3.8k. At the time Cathay were even cheaper than Thai.

Exploring the alternatives (that still score BA miles) the best I can find are some dubious looking seats on Finnair’s old A340 for around £2.2k

I’ve seen BT has just posted a review of Finnair’s A330, but not read it, I’m sure it will be an improvement on tha A340

Curiously I stumbled across some special fares on Cathay via Copenhagen for £2.8k, perversely the first leg of the journey, whilst orginating in CPH, takes you back to LHR to get you onto the direct flight to HKG.

If you need to move from Bronze to silver this gets you 360 tier points and two qualifying flights all in one go.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi Scott

Just looked for flights to Asia on CX and got them for just over £3.4k including legs to Singapore and back from Jakarta for 2 weeks time (rest of Asia is common rated with HK so if you need to fly internally worth booking as 1 ticket). Absolute lowest fare you can get is about £3.2k with CX at the moment (possible sale fares could be lower if and when they are released). Have also found for another reader LX for under £2k to HKG in August but otherwise you are right, Finnair can have good fares.

Also worth looking at AF to Guangzhou if that is useful as that is less, and TK to HKG or CAN can also be good value. I would expect EK/QR to release some lower fares at some point soon as they have removed “O” Class Business fares (Emirates) which are there specials so these could come back in the next few days/weeks.

[scott66]

Thanks Tim,

I’ve just spotted VK’s earlier post on BA journeys starting in AMS being less than 2k.

Part of the trouble was getting the CX fare for £2.5 first time round, is one gets used to a top quality sevice at a good price. When the price reverts to it’s usual level one feels hard done by.

If my customer can make up their mind in the next week, I’m bagging the BA fare from AMS. I need to fly from LHR to AMS, for them to fly me back to LHR, Would BA check the bags all the way through when I checkin at LHR for the first time?

[pdwtrip]

Agreed re the recent pricing HKG – just back from a trip last week – BA cheapest at 3.4K – last time went with CX for 2.2K.
Must be getting full loads to be confident enough to charge these fares.
Maybe BA should be putting the 380 on that route?

[pdtraveller]

The risein inflation was noted yesterday as being primarily driven by an unprecedented 22% rise in airfares! Now we can see why.

[skywards]

My friend and i use AMS now. We book our business class flights from AMS and then book a connection flight separately from our local airport of Newcastle. My friend is flying from AMS to BKK with Etihad in October in business and he paid around £1,440 with a separate connection fare from Newcastle included in the total fare. AMS for myself is easier for me than LHR, no changing terminals and KLM to AMS is cheaper than BA to LHR from NCL.

[Bucksnet]

pdwtrip – 19/06/2013 19:13 GMT- “Maybe BA should be putting the 380 on that route?”

They are!

[Hermes1964]

Check out Swiss fares. Kayak has some good offers.

[canucklad]

I know this is a bit off the wall, but i’m sure that it’s at this time of year that Hong Kong schools break up for their summer break……

Ian might be able to confirm….sure my pal and his wife and kids head back to Toronto for the summer next week !….and he sometimes struggles to get company seats on the same flight!

[Travellator]

OK a bit longer but Emirates from Dublin via DXB to HKG have some great business and F fares in €uro – you also avoid the dreaded UK APD – cheap flights from most hub UK airports to DUB !

[IanFromHKG]

A large part of the reason for the hike in fares on the London-HKG route, I suspect, is the fact that a year or two ago there were six airlines serving that route non-stop, and now there are three (QF, NZ and HK Airlines all stopped). There just isn’t as much capacity. With CX pushing ever further upmarket they are able to command better pricing, it appears, and I suspect the otehr two carriers are jacking up their prices to ride the same wave (cheeky sods)

Canucklad – the peak school travel tends to be driven by UK and US school holidays (boarding school kids from HK)

[Cloud-9]

MH occasionally do super saver business fares at half their normal rate. Subscribe to the newsletter for the deals.

[HongKongLady]

Thanks Stevescoots I might give them a try, the seat and leg room is the part that matters to me although a lack of champagne might be a problem 🙂
Canucklad, you are right schools in HK are about to break for the summer. There is a significant number of people that leave HK for the summer to stay at there Uk houses, or catch up with family. So flights also reflect this traffic.
There has as Ian said been a drop in the number of flights to Hk and this has had an effect on prices.

[Author]

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