How to Book Flights

Everyone likes to find the best price on their airfare - that's totally natural! Here is how we go about booking our flights when we travel internationally.

1. Work out the dates you want to travel
Check out our post about working out when you should arrive at your host institution.

2. Check out a couple of sites online to get an idea of prices
Online sites are getting easier and easier to use in order to search for international airfares.

The two sites that we use are:
Expedia.com.au
and
Zuji travel

These sites are great because you can search as much as you like and it is very easy to book. They are very powerful in that they can search multiple airlines (and sometime multiple destinations) at once.

3. Choose your preferred airline and search their website
Once you've used the search engines to identify suitable airlines, go directly to the airline's webpage and check the price they offer for the same flight.

Usually the price will be the same or similar as the online travel search engines (see step 2). If so, we will often book using Expedia or Zuji just to have the support of another organisation behind us if something were to go wrong with our travel plans (i.e. you can ask them to sort out changes for you instead of having to deal with the airline yourself).

4. Finally, go to a travel agent to compare prices
A good travel agent may be able to find other flight routings, airlines or dates that help make your flight cheaper or easier. However, if the travel agent doesn't come back with a better price we always book online.


AIM Overseas' recommended airlines
Finally, here are the airlines that we usually fly. Of course, it all depends where you want to go!

To Europe: We fly Singapore Airlines whenever possible.
The cheapest way to fly to Europe is to fly Air Asia X to London via Kuala Lumpur. Note this is a discount carrier, so your flights will be efficient and no-frills.

To North America: We recommend V Australia. New planes and great service make this the best way to get to the USA. You may need to book onward flights separately.

To Asia: Lots of airlines fly to Asia, so who we fly depends on where we need to go.
Singapore Airlines is our choice carrier, though we've also had great experiences on Thai, Asiana and Cathay Pacific.

Air Asia X is most often the cheapest way to fly to Asia cities, connecting via Kuala Lumpur.

To South America or Africa: There aren't many direct options from Australia to these destinations and you'll most likely end up on Qantas.

Round the World: The beautiful round-the-world option is a great way to see heaps for a great price. We strongly recommend the Star Alliance network which incorporates many of the world's best airlines and gives you access to the widest range of destinations on a single round-the-world itinerary.

Also check out our post on frequent flyer points.


Other Useful Online Tools

Here are some other tools that you'll find very useful when booking flights:

Seat Guru: A MUST to check out EVERY TIME YOU TRAVEL. Seat Guru has reviews of every seat on every type of plane for every airline. This allows you to check if you have been given a good seat or a crap seat by your travel agent or when you check-in online.

Seat counter: For people who know what they're looking for - find how many seats are still available in particular booking classes for flights.