Travel Inexpensively to Asia

I have been traveling around Asia for more than 10 years and living in Indonesia for nearly 7 years now. Because of my love of travel I often found myself in situations where I was looking for inexpensive plane tickets. From the beginning I realized it was quite different to deal with domestic versus international flights. For example, in most countries when you purchase domestic flight tickets there is little difference in the prices between two “one way” tickets OR one “return” ticket. Sometimes there is a slightly discounted price for the return ticket.

When it comes to finding international air tickets it is more difficult to find discounted Asia travel tickets. You might find that it is easier to get cheaper return tickets. So if you plan to travel to a variety of cities (round trip with many transit stop) it can be difficult to find good deals. Below is some tips that should help you find the cheapest flights to Asia available online.

I separate this article in two parts, international and domestic flight.

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 sample, if you are in Indonesia and want to flight to Australia, you will most likely have to choose between Garuda and Quantas. There are possibilities to use other flights companies such as Malaysia Airlines or Singapore Airlines. But you will loose a lot of time during your trip as you will have to transit to this 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 an inexpensive airline ticket is one thing but please don’t forget about safety. At the moment I don’t have any statistics about safety so I prefer not mention any airline specifically. 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…. However, please remember that airplanes are still one of the safest ways to travel in the world.

Once you have eliminated those companies with the worst safety records from your research, you can start to compare prices between the remaining few. Simply go to Google, type in the name of the company you are interested in and in a matter of seconds you will have their web address. If you want to purchase tickets in advance (let’s say more than three weeks), you will find that most of the companies have similar quotes. The problem in Indonesia is if you want to order domestic tickets more than three weeks in advance…you will find there is no cheap airfare ticket available. You generally need to wait for the “perfect” time to order your ticket (between two and three weeks in advance…. be careful after that it could be too late) and you should be able to get 20% to 70% discount.

Obviously there is another way to find cheap domestic ticket plane if you want to order you ticket long time in advance. You can use Air Asia. They have very cheap airfare and good website. This is a service from Malaysia, and they provide many other cities and countries around Asia. A really good solution for Cheap 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 defy all 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. More you booked in advance more chances you have to get a cheap airfare. I heard Quantas have some interesting packages available, like you buy a kind of atonement and can get great discount for a certain number of flight. If you need a lot of flights it could be advantageous. But the cheapest way to buy airline ticket is probably to book online with Blue Virgin or Jet Star. Both of them deserve many different cities in Australia, but not necessary the same one. So, it really depends where you want to go. Sometimes, its worse make some deep research to get better fee. For sample, once I was looking for a cheap airfare between Sydney and Darwin. Blue Virgin offered 450 AUD (via Brisbanne) and Jet Star doesn’t have this possibility. But when I check more deeply 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 search and good luck.

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…