Cheapest flights to N.Z.

[qwertyplop]

...can anyone point me in the direction of the cheapest flight to New Zealand in Aug?

Best seen so far is £1880 for two adults and two kids from Manchester - I suspect I can do a little better. Must leave via Manc.

Thanks in anticipation.

QP

[PAXboy]

Leave early August. Mid-August. Late August?
How long for?
How many intermediate stops are you prepared to take?
i.e. How old are the children and have they done this journey before?
Are you able/Do you want to night stop anywhere to relieve things for small children (and yourselves?
Must you have the same aircraft all the way?
etcetera

[Michael SWS]

£1880 for a family of four to travel from Manchester to NZ seems to be an extraordinary fare. Why do you suspect you can do better?

[A2QFI]

Best I found, in a short search was £3,860

[qwertyplop]

Leave early August. Mid-August. Late August?
How long for?
How many intermediate stops are you prepared to take?
i.e. How old are the children and have they done this journey before?
Are you able/Do you want to night stop anywhere to relieve things for small children (and yourselves?
Must you have the same aircraft all the way?
etcetera

Late Aug
1 way on that leg
As many stops as it takes - no problem
11 & 7
Yes - stopping is fine
No - happy to chop and change

[hellsbrink]

Got it down to £1826 at Tickets To World : Cheap Flights Deals Discount Airfares Affordable International Airline Tickets (http://www.ticketstoworld.co.uk) flying Cathay Pacific MAN-LHR-HKG-AKL on most days in last 2 weeks in Aug (not including Saturdays or Mondays, price jumps a little then.)

Added: Opodo have the same flight for £4 less

[GroundedSLF]

Cheapest deal I can find for a one way in the last week of August is £1246.00 for a family of 4.

Comes with the usual caveats about seperate tickets and missing flights etc, but here goes:

Rail from Manchester to Stansted
Air Asia X to KUL - seperate ticket onwards to MEL
Virgin Blue onwards to AKL

"no frills" all the way, but if you want it cheap...

Personally with 2 young uns, I would shell out the extra and go on CX...

[qwertyplop]

Wow- that's cheap.

At that price, I can go to the nice bit at the front and the wife & kids can go to the back....

Happy days.

[Flapping_Madly]

Shocking attitude. Like it.:eek:

[Wycombe]

I've been to NZ twice in the last 18 mths, Feb/Mar 08 and Feb this year, family of 4 (kids under 11 so qualifying for kids fare at I think 75% of full), paid £3.8k last year and £4.2k this, with Air NZ (a fine long haul carrier, by the way), in Economy, via HKG last year and RTW via LAX and HKG this year. A couple of internal sectors (to CHC and ZQN) were included in these prices.

Not forgetting that August is low season for travelling UK to NZ (and my fares were fairly high season, although Dec and Jan are the costliest), the fares you have found seem fantastic, esp. those quoted for Cathay.

Another one to consider might be Royal Brunei, who are still operating to AKL as far as I know, and have a reputation for being amongst the lowest cost options.

[kaikohe76]

I would think under the present climate, anything at all under two thousand stg for what you are looking for is very good. For me, Air NZ or SVQ would be my top choices, they certainly have the best economy cabin, both for comfort & service, obviously the cost would be more that your present quote. Have you checked out Emirates at all, now they have the A380 coming down this way, that is a lot more seats available.
Whatever you do, I would suggest you avoid coming by the US, just not worth the trouble during transit.
Good Luck & hope it works out for you.