Temporary Low Cost Travel Cafe

[Mrs]

My husband and I are going to adopt two children, this means our children will only travel one-way. A couple of travelagencies tell us we cannot purchase a roundtrip for the children, that the return flight will be automatically cancelled if the children are not onboard on the flight out (from Sweden). A one-way ticket for a child more than two years of age is more expensive than a roundtrip ticket for an adult A local travel agency however, did recommend us to buy the childrens tickets in the country from where we are adopting (Taiwan), they say the prices are a lot less from there, including the one-way tickets. Does anyone of you have more information about this? Now we are considering flying out with a lowbudget airline to Hong Kong or Bangkok and buy all our returntickets in Taiwan. What do you think? Have you got any better ideas? Are the flights usually fully booked and impossible to get three seats in approximately a week beforehand ? (one child under the age of two is going to sit in our lap)
Hoping for an answer, best regards, Mrs

[attitudetravel]

Just to clarify...

You are looking for one-way low cost travel from Taiwan to Sweden - is that correct?
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[Mrs]

Yes, that´s correct, our greatest concern is if it is possible to book the oneway tickets from Taiwan to Sweden, and if the tickets are as expensive as booking them from Sweden? We would be there about 1-2 weeks and book the tickets as soon as we get there.
If you have suggestions on how to get there, to Taiwan from Sweden, the cheapest way, we will be very glad to hear it too. We are thinking about going to London with Ryan air and then to Hong Kong with Orion (?). We are also interested in staying in Thailand on the way to Taiwan, spend a week there before it is time to be i Taiwan. Do you know how fully booked these routes can be in lets say one week in advance?
Thank you so much in advance for your time /Mrs

[attitudetravel]

[attitudetravel]

So, for each person who is flying from Sweden out to Taiwan and then flying back to Sweden, you could do something like this:

1 x round-trip flight on Ryanair from Sweden - London Stansted - Sweden
1 x round-trip flight on Oasis from London Gatwick - Hong Kong - London Gatwick
1 x round-trip flight on Eva Air from Hong Kong - Taipei - Hong Kong

Then, for each person who is only flying from Taiwan to Sweden, you could do something like this:

1 x one-way flight on Eva Air from Taipei - Hong Kong
1 x one-way flight on Oasis from Hong Kong - London Gatwick
1 x one-way flight on Ryanair from London Stansted - Sweden
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[attitudetravel]

If you want to take a side-trip to Thailand on your way to Taiwan then, after flying into Hong Kong airport on Oasis, you could take the TurboJET across the Pearl River Delta to Macau and then catch a cheap, low cost flight to Bangkok on Air Asia.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[Konangrit]

I think EVA would probably be the best option. The Taipei - Heathrow flight is via Bangkok, so you can simply book a stop-over on your return flight. The Oasis route below does work out EUR 120 cheaper, but doesn't include a stop-off in Bangkok. When you add in Hong Kong - Macau TurboJet, and Macau - Bangkok flights it isn't that much cheaper, and involves quite a bit of extra work, which isn't ideal whilst travelling with young children.

EVA also fly Amsterdam - Taipei Via Bangkok, so it's worth checking to see if that flight has any advantages over the Heathrow route. The UK has quite high airport taxes now, so the Amsterdam flight may work out cheaper.

I've flown with EVA a few times and highly recommend them. Their return flights are usually excellent value, although from the post above it seems that their one-way flights aren't so great, which is unfortunate.

[attitudetravel]

Thanks for that, Konangrit. I have personal experience with all of the airlines above, but not with Eva Air so it's helpful to have some feedback on what they're like.

I think Mrs is considering going to Thailand with her husband on the way to Taiwan, not on the way back when the kids will also be travelling.

But, since Eva Air flies to Taipei via Bangkok, it seems that flying:

London / Amsterdam - Bangkok - Taipei

would be a much better alternative than:

London - Hong Kong - Macau - Bangkok - Macau - Hong Kong - Taipei

I absolutely agree.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[Mrs]

Thank You both for all valuable information. We are definitely going to look into the Eva air option and the routes mentioned. My hope was that the tickets could be booked in Taiwan for a lesser amount than from Sweden, but I guess that was a little to much to hope for. The tickets booked through a travel agency in Sweden going one-way for children older than 2 yrs are the most costly. But going through the internet does makes it cheaper. In addition, since we are not all sure about when we can fly back to Sweden, why we consider booking the tickets in Taiwan.

Thanks again! /Mrs

By the way, I didn´t get a notification about the replies.

[Mrs]

To clarify, the travel agencies in Sweden book mostly with Thai air and KLM, is it possible that these airlines are less expensive to book oneway when in Taiwan? /Mrs

[attitudetravel]

[Mrs]

Mr Lansdowne,

Thank you for a very clarifying answer. It is nice to hear about how the system works from someone independent from travel agencies and airlines. I´m surprised that we got the advise to book the tickets oneway in Taiwan from an agency here in Sweden after what I´ve learned.
I hope others have some use of this information as well
Now I feel confident in booking low cost airlines.
Best regards, Mrs

[Konangrit]