No, my wife is not pregnant again We have this period of time to go before we go over to the Phils to take our kigs to see their family over there. When do you all book your flights, is it better to book well in advance to get a better deal? Preiously, I have always left things until the last month to book. Any suggestions on booking flights early if this is the way to go? Cheers.
Many others have more experience than me, but the general rule of thumb is that booking flights earlier gives a cheaper price, but booking package holidays is cheaper when done later. But this is not a hard and fast rule; prices can fluctuate in both directions (several times each day), especially as you get nearer the date. These fluctuations can be huge! I mean a doubling in price and then halving again in the space of a few hours. Keep an eye on Skyscanner.net for some cheap deals and on the airline's websites you are considering, and when you think you see a bargain - book it! And don't forget to take out travel insurance immediately after booking, especially as it seems there will be at least four of you travelling.
I reckon you should book a few months in advance. The problem with the KLM route now though, is that they have made it more profitable by heading to Taiwan first, so not likely to lower the prices...
Meant to ask you Sean, just exactly how busy were your flights especially on the way back, did you see many empty seats? It's not just Taiwan that is on the KLM route now, a couple of Chinese locations as well as Singapore and Taiwan are being used for the tax avoiding short hop, I am very interested in finding out the occupancy rates as it will give me some guidance as to how prices will move in the final days coming up to a flight, I have access to actual seat sales data (not just for KLM) and if they are not reducing prices closer to the flight date then this is a major change of policy from previous years.
I would say if you are planning to travel near Christmas that from personal experience you have to book within the next three months as prices at and around Christmas never get any better, the flow of OFW's back home around that time is just huge and all the airlines know it and charge a premium as a result, Easter and All Saints day are also premium times. Normally around about now there are some good offers in May, June, July but these are not materialising on my preferred route this year. In the past you could say that apart from the obvious peak times there would be significant offers closer to the flight time, the big carriers have tended to operate differently from the budget carriers, the big ones sell their expensive seats up front to those that really have to travel these routes and then gradually decreased prices to make sure they made up the quota and got a full flight. I should have taken the deals that were available about two months ago as now I am looking at over 900 quid for an upcoming flight edit: I should explain that my last comment is a result of the change in price patterns, flights were selling much cheaper about 8 to 10 weeks ago on the dates I want to travel, last year it was the opposite, this year KLM and Air France are behaving more like budget carriers regards pricing.
Thanks Sean, that would be typical for KLM, I rarely saw empty seats on any flight out of Manila, I was a fraction too late to check the seat sales on your flight, I tried a couple of days before you flew, but the info channel closes once online check-in starts. I know it's a hard question, but have you a rough idea of the numbers that boarded at Taiwan? The reason for the recent price increase is mostly the new EU carbon tax rules I guess, but also in reality it is not cheap to take off and land 90 or so minutes later, that's a lot of fuel to use to add a small number of passengers and I am not sure it would offset the pax tax imposed on KLM and other airlines by the Philippine government. The very large rise in the oil price will also be a big factor I guess. The cheapest flight I can find is via lastminute but I think it would involve full transit at the intermediate airports, i.e. go through immigration and collect your hold baggage and that kind of scares me, I've never ever had to do that and I would be worried about them losing track of my luggage altogether, particularly having had one lost luggage incident in the past. The lastminute deal would be good (it's only 540 quid) as there is at least one KLM leg and if that were a miles earning flight my requirement for preservation of my miles would have been met, I have to fly KLM before the end of the year or I lose over 100,000 miles, that's two return flights at promo rates My other options are fly to Hong Kong and transit manually via Philippine Airlines, that option can be made at a fairly cheap price as well, still nowhere near as cheap as I managed last year
Usually I will check out Skyscanner and Kayak Once armed with information don't forget to contact your local travel agent or even some of the more reputable from your freebe Pinoy newspaper (Crystal Travel for example). They can often offer similar prices with the benefit of additional luggage allowance or maybe better connection timings. Always worth a phone call. As oss mentions if you plan to travel peak times (like Xmas, Easter etc) better to grab the early best price. It's always a risk these days, changes always on the horizon. Good luck
No idea how many people boarded in Taiwan, but the flight from Manila had plenty of empty seats, which was nice for me stretching my legs and taking up a seat and a half like I was sat in a normal armchair... But then, once we got back on after the quick stopover in Taiwan.. All of the empty seats got taken up by passengers! And I would bet that is how it would be going forward. Back in 2007, I took a flight from Bangkok to Manchester and there were quite a few empty seats. Perhaps a good route for people wanting some space on a Flight would be to Fly to Bangkok, then hop over to Manila!
Thanks Sean, my first flight to the Phils was Emirates for 500 quid and all three of us travelling got 3 seats each ended up getting to sleep really well. Well my cheapest option for next month has just vanished now the next cheapest is China Southern, who sound like Ryan Air, they don't even feed you on the 32 hour outbound journey they are members of Skyteam though so my miles might be preserved and baggage would be checked all the way through, they're price is 655 quid, sadly I don't have the cash to buy a flight for about another 10 days, I might still end up paying a bit more for the security of familiarity, KLM is coming in at 950 just now.
