Challenge: How far can you fly from London and back for less than £400? Let’s take a look at some of the special offers in the airfare market currently available.
For £400 or less we can easily get anywhere in Europe. So what about the Middle East?
Well Skyteam airline Alitalia is advertising some excellent return fares (via Milan and Rome) from London on its website:
£160 Damascus
£161 Tel Aviv
£176 Beirut
£187 Tehran
Qatar Airways has the following London deals bookable by 6 May, travel by June 30:
£202 Abu Dhabi
£217 Muscat
What about Africa?
Well you could fly to Marrakesh in Morocco with Ryanair and Easyjet for between £100 and £200.
Virgin Atlantic has a promo this weekend (book by April 22) for return economy flights to Nairobi from London Heathrow for £299. Travel until May 24 – this is a decent fare to east Africa.
Egyptair (Star Alliance) has an offer to Khartoum for £328, travel by June 30, book by April 30.
Qatar Airways has a fare to Johannesburg for £303 return via Doha. Cape Town is offered for £358 – same dates as mentioned above.
India?
Virgin can get you non-stop to Mumbai for £305 (book, travel by May 2) and Delhi for £334 (book by May 9, travel to June 30). [Note, they also have a very good premium economy deal to Delhi for £494 for travel in May]
Gulf Air have some good offers to India (via Bahrain):
£290 Mumbai
£310 Delhi
£326 Chennai
Star Alliance Swiss will get you to Delhi for £341 (book by April 30).
For £400 we can also easily get to North America. American will fly you to Las Vegas for £340 (book by April 30, travel up to 30 Jun). Air New Zealand flies non-stop to Los Angeles for £351 (travel by June 20, book by May 6), whilst US Airways has a special fares in May from £313. Air Transat will get you to Vancouver on May 14th from £333, returning a week later.
Air France has a fare to Mexico City for £374. Iberia has return flights to Panama City for £389.
At time of writing there are no airfares to Hawaii nor south America for less than £400.
What about airfares to Asia?
Qatar Airways has an excellent fare to Hong Kong of £304 (book by May 6, travel to June 30). Air New Zealand have fares at £357 (book by April 21, travel by June 21) and Virgin £364 (book by May 5, travel to June 16).
Etihad can get you to Bangkok for £391 for various dates in May. (Check your country’s travel advisory and whether your travel insurance is valid for Thailand)
We checked “low cost” Air Asia X for flights to Kuala Lumpur in May and June – no promo fares were available, nothing under £400! Promo fares (£363, plus charges for seat assignment, baggage, meals) were available in September.
Air France has flights to Beijing £386 and Singapore £395, book by April 21, fly by June 17.
Emirates can get you to Jakarta for £393 (book by April 30, fly by July 10). Fares with Malaysian Airlines to the Indonesian capital can be found on some agents for £373.
You can even fly to Tokyo for under the £400 – Air China has fare of £381 (found on travelocity for various dates in May).
Nothing is available to Australia for less than £400 – the best we found was a £430 fare to Perth. However in February you could have purchased airfares to Australia and New Zealand for under £400 using some special airfare ‘tricks’.
Now is a good time to take advantage of these long-haul airfares with oil prices at lower levels. The airlines are struggling with a significant drop in premium travellers, their biggest source of revenue – if this continues then economy prices will have to increase in the near future.
