[Mike Tyson]

I am heading out to Sydney to celebrate my best friends 30th birthday. Its a big surprise, and hopefully we can make it happen without him knowing! (Thankfully he isn't a climber so won't stumble across this forum!)

My biggest problem at the moment is unsurprisingly, flights. I have been searching around, and find flights advertised for £730 return but they seem to exist in never never land. I know Google is supposedly my friend, but can anyone recommend from experience a decent place/site/agent to book flights through? Hoping to fly from Manchester but if I can get it considerably cheaper from say, Heathrow, it'll have to be considered.

I seem to recall that if you search for a flight or holiday or hotel etc through a search engine, the next time you do the same search fromthe same PC it becomes more expensive. Is this fact or have I made it up? And if it fact, how can I get around this problem?

Sorry if these seem like basic questions, but I am basic so I can't help it.

[miso soup]

The past couple of times I've ended up doing multi-airline combos.  You'll have to stop somewhere anyway and it can work out cheaper to book the two legs separately with different airlines.  Try finding the cheapest flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney, then find the cheapest from UK to KL.  Then try the same with Beijing and as many other Asian hubs as you can be arsed to do.  There's no quick and easy way that I'm aware of but you can save a bit by doing this.  I miss Sydney.

[clm]

I've been twice on Qatar. They were reasonable. Apparently etihad are too.

[BB]

 :bounce:The cheapest way is to just book a one way flight and never go back. worked for me! 

You could also sto away aboard a container vessel. It is a 6-8 week trip though.

Seriously though, my folks booked through trail finders and got return flights plus 2 nights in a 5 star in Singapore on the way out and the way back for the pair of them for £2600 which seems really good. Seems like a good deal so fight be worth going them a go.

[Carnage]

I hope you're going to boulder too!

[BB]

On what Stu? It's all wet. 

[SA Chris]

www.skyscanner.net is pretty good for doing price comparisons. It also shows you prices for a day or two earlier or later. Doesn't do multiple airlines combos though.

The risk of going for a multiple airline combo is that if you are delayed on one leg of a flight that causes you to miss the next if it's with different airlines they aren't liable and you have to pay for another flight. If you aren't prepared to risk this then stick with a single airline or single alliance.