British Airways have some amazing routing options on their fares from Australia to Europe. Even though they do fly into Sydney daily, they actually allow passengers to utilise a number of partner airlines to transport them between Australia and Asia on the way to Europe. These partners include Qantas, Jetstar, Cathay Pacific, Malaysian Airlines, Qatar Airways, JAL, Philippine Airlines, the list goes on and on.
The best thing about these fares though, is that you are able to have a couple of stops in each direction, using these partner airlines to fly around Asia, all on a return ticket to Europe. So, for example, you could fly from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia Airlines then onto Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific then on to London with British Airways all on the way to London on the BA ticket. Having so many partners also means that with a little flexibility, availability in the cheaper fare buckets becomes reasonably easy to get your hands on.
These fares aren’t restricted to the big Asian ports either. You can get to some really interesting cities or fantastic beach destinations on your way to Europe.
Here’s an example of an itinerary you can build with these fares:
So that’s Sydney to Kuala Lumpur with Malaysian Airlines, then on to Koh Samui with Bangkok Airways, then to Bangkok with Bangkok Airways, then to London with BA, open jaw out of Paris to Hong Kong via London with BA, then to Singapore with Cathay Pacific, then to Manila with Jetstar Asia and finally back to Sydney with Qantas.
The total price for this itinerary? $1842 including all taxes and fees!!!
There are so many things you can do around Asia with these fares it’s simply jaw-dropping. You could go to Langkawi in one direction and catch the boat over to Koh Lipe on your way to London then visit Tokyo on your way home. You could have a beach break in Boracay on your way to Rome and then check out Macau’s casinos on your way home from Milan.
What dates work?
These fares are definitely seasonal. The low season will obviously be the cheapest and at the moment that means departing from Australia between the 27th of September and the 5th of December. If you want to use them during the peak European summer months, you absolutely can but expect to pay a few hundred dollars extra.
When does it end?
In their current form, they are available for ticketing until the 30th of June, though they have been coming and going for some time.
You never know when airlines will pull fares or place extra restrictions on what you can do with them though, so it’s always better sooner than later.
How to book it
Unfortunately, these fares can’t be booked online. I tried to get one to work online by heading a bunch of online travel agencies and entered the same itinerary as above into the multi destination search. Most actually don’t even allow you to enter quite so many stops but even the ones that do can’t seem to put these fares together with this many stops. Having said that, they will easily bring them up if it’s a simpler itinerary.
So, to book these airfares you’ll need to visit your travel agent and possibly direct them to the British Airways fares.
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