Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

[Filer]

My wife and I are looking at moving to Bali next year (we're currently living in Thailand). We're wondering what our business class options will be in Bali, for Denpasar-London trips. We have to do some forward planning for an August trip now.

In Thailand we buy business class tickets to European destinations from the established discount agents in BKK for around USD 2,000 -- generally on one of the Gulf airlines, with a change of planes in the Gulf, such as Gulf Air, Qatar Airways etc.

Posts of 2-3 years back on this forum suggest that there's little or no discount ticket market in Bali - no agents operating this type of business.

Does anybody on this forum have a way of getting good priced business class return tickets out of Denpasar to London - say on Cathay, Malaysian or Qatar travelling through their respective hubs. Any discount agents in HKG for example who could book us tickets out of Denpasar?

Otherwise, any other suggestions for good-priced travel business travel to London and back without awkward connections or changes?

[tintin]

Unfortunately, there are no bucket shops in Denpasar. As for bucket shops in Hongkong, I had found several of them in HKG guide books, some years ago. I would guess that now one could do the same thing from the internet.

[VincentOG]

Generally, there are no cheap flights out of Bali to Europe. Occasionally, Garudua offers promotions from Jakarta to Amsterdam but, usually, you will be best served by getting a cheap international flight out of Bali and then flying from of one the major S.E.A. hubs.
The cheapest international destinations to fly out of Bali are
1. KLIA
2. SIN

The best destination in S.E.A. to pick up cheap tickets to Europe (as you will know) is BKK.
However, Bali to BKK means either
1. an expensive Thai Air flight DPS-BKK
2. a tedious but cheap Air Asia 2 flight option; DPS-KLIA, KLIA-BKK

A discount air ticket agency I have used in SIN is Misa Travel (http://www.airfares.com.sg)

In KL maybe try http://www.diethelm-travel.com

Possibly check the local newspapers in KL & SIN for other options.

[Filer]

Thanks, Tintin and Vincent OG.

This all coincides with the conclusion that I have reached with other sources (and also tracks with comments on another recent topic on this forum about cheap tickets to Europe).

Bangkok is the best place to get a competitively-priced Business class ticket to Europe (almost always with unrestricted, open return - except, naturally, that you have to stick to the airline concerned). It looks as though we'll be combining this on each trip with a BKK-DPS-BBK ticket purchased through my favourite BKK ticket agent (Chawla). I'll buy the first of these on our way in to DPS this year and then keep a return leg ready to tie up with the next European trip through BKK.

I have yet to see what Chawla can do for BKK-DPS-BKK, but if anybody can get a good price, he can. I'll post results on this forum as soon as I have sorted out our first trip of this type.

It's no problem for us to transit through BKK, as it gives us an excuse to stop over in a place which we like, and it's also no problem for us if the DPS leg involves a change in SIN or KUL as we'll be taking a break in BKK.