Cheap flights to Beijing from London?

[Chinese Learner]

Hi,

I've started trawling through the net for cheap flights to Beijing from London. I'm planning to travel in October.

Can anyone make any suggestions for any airlines or websites that might have cheap flights to Beijing?

Thanks for the help!

[roddy]

When I was looking Emirates worked out cheapest. I ended up going Glasgow > Dubai > Shanghai as Glasgow was nearer, and flying to Shanghai meant I got in mid-afternoon rather than 11pm at night to Beijing, which made getting an ongoing internal connection a bit more palatable. However I think there is a more reasonably timed flight to Beijing as well, I just didn't see it.

I looked at flights from London as well, and again Emirates were cheapest, at least from looking on the major flight search engines.

Actually I should also point out that I contacted a few Chinatown travel agents as well - they were quoting slightly cheaper prices, but were very slow to respond to inquiries and didn't always answer their phones. In the end I went for Emirates, booked online via their own website. Worked out fine, flight was no problem, only two hours at Dubai, and my luggage arrived in the right place at the right time.

[Shadowdh]

As with Roddy, I also flew Emirates from London via dubai to Beijing... my stop over was slightly longer in Dubai (3 hours 40mins just under the free meal time limit of 4 hours) but the flight was very good, pretty cheap and I got into Beijing mid afternoon so that was good. The first time I booked through ebookers and the second flight I booked through trailfinders who are incredibly good and very efficient. same price for both including taxes was around 389 return...

[smalldog]

I'd recommend Xinlung Travel in Manchester for great prices. However my wife did the booking so I don't know how helpful they are with laowai. Their website is at http://newtrip.co.uk (Chinese only) and their phone number is 0161 237 3377. They accept debit cards and issue etickets so there is no need to visit them.

[smalldog]

Also, if you're going one way you could look at taking Oasis (www.oasishongkong.com) to Hong Kong then taking an internal flight from Shenzhen to Beijing.

[adrianlondon]

One way? Has to be Oasis.

If you're coming back within 12 months and you're a student (and under 26) then get an open return student ticket.

Otherwise ... get Emirates if money's the primary concern (you'll have to stop over though; and I hate doing that unless I'm stopping somewhere I want to spend a couple of days or more).

[beijingbabe]

I flew out here 2 weeks ago on air china direct to beijing from lhr. Advantage - 30kg luggage allowance. Disadvantage - they broke my luggage but paid up on the spot after a lot of arguing about how much compensation they were going to give me, which turned out to be a lot less than say singapore airlines but was still reasonable.

The ticket price was £440 with CITS (google them they're on the euston road and have a branch on charing cross road - their phone number has lots of 8's, sorry I don't remember it exactly). They have the same student fares as STA but you don't have to purchase a student card.

Turned out well as I got away with 35kg - the excess on ba would have been a lot.

If you want more allowance you can go china southern via shanghai (may have to change airport) which is also around £440 but you get 40kg.

Flying back to london in 2 weeks for vacation on ba. Bought the ticket 3 weeks ago -- it cost £650 but 46kg allowance / premium economy.

If you book emirates make sure you don't get the middle of the night stopover (2/3am - 6am). Friends say it's a nightmare for jetlag.

By the way air china excess is £24/kg. Multi leg = multi excess baggage fee

Hope this helps

Liz

[Chinese Learner]

Hi,

I've had a change of plan - I'm now going to Hong Kong first. I've had a look at Oasis which seem fairly reasonable. I was just wondering if anyone knew any other cheap airlines to Hong Kong (rather than Beijing).

Thanks a lot!!