I am fortunate to have been traveling in and around Asia for more than 10 years and have been living in Indonesia for not quite 7 years now. Since I love to travel I often find myself in situations where I need to find inexpensive plane tickets. When I first started my search for inexpensive ways to travel I realized it was quite different to deal with domestic versus international flights. In most countries there is little difference in the prices between two “one way” tickets OR one “return” ticket when you purchase domestic flight tickets. Sometimes you may get a slightly discounted price for the return ticket.
It is more difficult to find discounted tickets when it comes to finding international air tickets. I have found that it is easier to get cheaper return tickets. So if you are planning to travel to a variety of cities (round trip with many layover stops) it can be difficult to find good deals. Below are some tips that should help you find the cheapest flights to Asia available online.
I have separated this article in two parts, international and domestic flights.
To begin with let’s talk about international flights. There many great web sites around, but you will need to do some research before you find what you really want. I suggest you to begin by looking those companies which service the country you are flying to or from.
For example, if you are in Indonesia and want to flight to Australia, you will most likely have to choose between Garuda and Quanta’s airlines. You could also use other airlines such as Malaysia Airlines or Singapore Airlines. Regrettably you will undoubtedly lose time during your trip as you will have layovers in their hub cities.
As you will see in the following article about domestic flight, Air Asia is one of my favorite when is about to flight in Indonesia. And this is also true when is to find the Asia Cheapest Flight as they deserve more than fifty cities in the region.
Regarding domestic flights, I have had two entirely different experiences in Indonesia and Australia.
In Indonesia, if you want to buy a domestic flight ticket you will have plenty of choices. Indonesia is a vast Archipelago of tropical and Virgin Islands constitute of more than twelve’s thousand islands. More than three thousands of these Islands are inhabited and I believe that more than hundreds of them get an airport. So, you can imagine the number of possibilities and market available in Indonesia. The main company airlines in Indonesia are Garuda (also provide international flight), Merpati, Mandala, Lion Air, Adam Air, Star Air, Batavia, etc..
Finding the most inexpensive airline ticket is one thing, but don’t forget about safety. I don’t have any statistics about safety right now so I prefer not mention specifically any of them. However, if you have read the newspaper during these last few months, you probably are aware of what I’m talking about. Some of the above names are probably famous around the world right now, but probably not for the cheapest airfare…. But don’t worry too much as airplanes are still one of the safest transportation systems in the world.
After you had eliminated the worst flight company from your newspaper research, you can start compare price between few of the companies. Just go to Google, type the company name and you should find their web site in manner of seconds. If you looking for ticket long in advance (let’s say more than three weeks), you will find that most of ticket have similar quotes with the international and most reputed national company…..Garuda Indonesia. And that’s the problem in Indonesia if you want to order domestic flight more than three weeks in advance…No cheap airfare ticket available. You will have to wait the “perfect” time to order your ticket (between three weeks and two weeks in advance…. be careful after that it could be too late) and you should be able to get 20% to 70% discount.
Of course there is another way to find inexpensive tickets if you want to order your tickets in advance. You can use Air Asia. Air Asia has cheap airfare and an easy to use website. Air Asia is based in Malaysia and provides travel to many cities and countries around Asia. Air Asia is a really good solution for discounted Asia travel.
In Indonesia, AirAsia serves the main cities of Jakarta, Denpasar (Bali), Medan, Surabaya, etc… Globally, they fly to over fifty cities around Asia. The service is limited (no seat pre-reserved in check-in), but it is safe and their fees really are better than most of the other companies for the price and services available. From what I have seen, they have the cheapest flights in Asia. So, have a look….
In Australia, it seems to works mostly like in the others western countries. The farther you book in advance the higher your chances of finding cheaper airfare. Quantas has some great discounts available on purchasing package tickets. If you need to book a lot of flights it could be advantageous. You might find your best values if you book your tickets with Blue Virgin or Jet Star. Both fly to many different cities in Australia however not necessary the same one. So, it really depends where you want to go. Sometimes, it’s worse if you do a lot of research to get better fee. For example, once I was looking for a cheap airfare between Sydney and Darwin. Blue Virgin offered 450 AUD (via Brisbanne) and Jet Star didn’t have this flight available. But when I checked a bit further into some others cities, I found out that I can get Sydney-Adelaide for 99AUD and Adelaide-Darwin for 167 AUD with Jet Star. Total 266 AUD. I just saved 184 AUD. Sometimes you will find better price with Blue Virgin. It all depends of the availability. So good luck on your research.
By the way, JetStar also provides some of the discount airfares in Asia as they fly to many others country such as Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc…
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