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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 10:56 am Post subject: The Great Escape from Japan - on the cheap! |
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Dear everybody
If anyone has any experience or advice on getting out of Japan cheaply then i'd be very pleased to hear it. I'm heading back to the UK but trying to do it cheaply via bangkok or singapore then on to India on the way back. I'm okay after gettting to either Singapore, Bangkok for my onwards journey - which I believe are the cheapest routes out of Japan in that direction - but its the first leg of the journey just getting to these places that's the problem.
I've found prices for £90 to Thailand and singapore but after adding the tax surcharges the price is £250, which I was hoping I could get cheaper being that its only one-way and i'm not even half way home at that point.
Any ideas very welcome!!!
Cheers
Clint
P.S I'm also a little stuck getting from India to Europe cheaply, looks like I have to go via the middle-east, but can't find anything particularly cheap. In fact, if anyone has any ideas on how to do the entire trip Japan to UK via india cheaply then i'm all ears! |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'm also a little stuck getting from India to Europe cheaply |
That bit is easy.
As long as you book ahead of time and are flexible on dates, you can fly very cheaply from numerous cities in India to Sharjah airport in the UAE on Air Arabia.
Then you can fly, very cheaply again, from Sharjah in the UAE to Istanbul on Air Arabia.
I can personally vouch for the itinerary above, because I flew with a couple of friends from London to Istanbul on easyJet just before Christmas, and then we flew onwards on Air Arabia from Istanbul to Sharjah to Kochi in Kerala in southwest India. With a midnight flight from Istanbul and a six hour dog-tired stop-over in the rather bare-bones (not to mention "under construction") Sharjah airport, it wasn't always comfortable, but it was certainly very cheap.
One possible alternative - which I don't have any direct experience of - is flying on Air Arabia's Middle Eastern low cost rival, Jazeera Airways from Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi in India to Kuwait City and then onwards to either Istanbul or else to Larnaca on Cyprus.
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Alan Lansdowne
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | its the first leg of the journey just getting to these places that's the problem. |
Bang on. Unfortunately that's still the really tricky part because, despite the fact that the four major Asian low cost airlines (Air Asia, Tiger Airways, Cebu Pacific Air and Jetstar Asia) are rapidly connecting up the rest of South East Asia and East Asia with low cost air routes, Japan is remaining typically aloof - as yet, there are no low cost air routes in or out of the country from Southeast Asia.
You might want to have a look at Viva Macau's charter packages from Narita to Macau (not available online - only from offline travel agents).
Viva Macau provides a list of the agents on the ground in Japan through which you can book (see this page: http://www.flyvivamacau.com/jp/packages/) but it won't be clear until you give them a call or go in and inquire in person whether you can fly one-way from Tokyo to Macau and, if so, how much it will set you back.
However, if you do manage to get an affordable one-way flight from Narita to Macau on Viva Macau, you should be sorted, because you can then find:
a) Cheap flights from Macau to Bangkok in Thailand on Air Asia
b) Cheap flights from Macau to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on Air Asia
c) Cheap flights from Macau to Singapore on Tiger Airways.
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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Thinking of other alternatives...
I wonder if you might find any cheap flights to the Philippines advertised in the classifieds at the back of ex-pat newspapers?
If you can find a cheap one-way flight to Manila, (sounds unlikely, I know, but you might be lucky) then you'll easily be able to fly low cost westwards to the Southeast Asian mainland on Cebu Pacific Air which links Manila to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.
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Alan Lansdowne
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 2:46 am Post subject: |
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cheers Alan!
I found out about your site from your lithuania friend I met traveling in india earlier this year so please thank him for me - i'm off to check out the routes now!
Thanks again
Clint |
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MHG
Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Posts: 14
Location: Schwetzingen (Heidelberg), Germany
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:40 am Post subject: |
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@imustbegoing
I have a few questions regarding your way home ...
1) when do you want to go exactly?
2) where is your exact destination?
Firstly i would recommend not to look at the "salami-tactic" (slice-by-slice...) at first !
Simply because it´s a miracle to believe one can save money that way. Even the lowest individual LCC-fares of several flight segments will add up to a significant higher overall price finally !
(be aware that schedules of individual LCC´s usuall don´t match so additional accommodation expenses need to be added also)
But i must admit that starting from Japan will be a hard nut to break ...
If you really need more detailed advice i´ll check out suitable options for you !
(btw. i do not work as a travel agent but i have solid experience in making "weird" or "off-the-beaten-track" itineraries - sometimes at incredibly low fares / but of course not always ...)
P.S.: I am a real aviation fan for many years now and i work as a volunteer for a swiss aviation magazine. So, my experience/knowledge certainly goes far beyond that of "average" travellers ... |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | In fact, if anyone has any ideas on how to do the entire trip Japan to UK via india cheaply then i'm all ears! |
Just to add, in case you hadn't already seen the thread, there's an itinerary here which involves flying on low cost carriers from Hong Kong to London:
Demise of Oasis Hong Kong - Can Anyone Help?
Of course, you'll still need to get to the Pearl River Delta from the Land of the Rising Sun first...
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Alan Lansdowne
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Alan
The route out of India to turkey is very good - and Thomas cook of all people can get us back to the uk from there mid june very cheaply, so thanks a lot for that one.
To answer your question we're leaving Japan anytime first week of june depending on the cost of flights,, but seems that further into june we go the prices go up, so probably around the 1st of the month. We'll only be traveling for a few weeks with a couple in india hopefully, aiming to get back around the 22nd of june - would love to have longer but money's run out.
Next question, we're happy to take almost any route back home but would like to include india in the stops and avoid expensive countries and stop overs, hence bangkok is quite a good option for the asian stop.
Checked out the Macau - Bangkok route which is very cheap indeed and would make it worthwhile checking the agents here for vivamacau, doing that tomorrow.
Thanks again for your help much appreciated.
Clint |
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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| imustbegoing wrote: |
To answer your question we're leaving Japan anytime first week of june depending on the cost of flights,, but seems that further into june we go the prices go up, so probably around the 1st of the month. We'll only be traveling for a few weeks with a couple in india hopefully, aiming to get back around the 22nd of june - would love to have longer but money's run out.
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sorry Alan you didn't exactly ask that question - i've now just looked back at your original question and you asked about our final destination.. oops. We're needing to ultimately get back the the south of england, gatwick would be best or any london airport.
cheers again |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | i've now just looked back at your original question and you asked about our final destination |
Eh? No that was MHG who asked that, not me 
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Alan Lansdowne
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| attitudetravel wrote: |
Eh? No that was MHG who asked that, not me |
Jesus i'm going nuts - in my defense i can only blame poor eyesight...
sorry MHG I clearly didn't notice you'd joined the discussion, your advice would be greatly appreciated, cheers |
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:00 am Post subject: the route so far |
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a little creative but here goes...
Japan - HK £125 on Northwest 2/6
HK - Macau £10 boat (ingenious idea!!) 3/6
Macau - Bangkok £50 Air asia 3/6
Bangkok - Kolkata £75 Air India (This one is the problem, a little expensive and landing in Kolkata(calcutta)
You know the rest via Kochin - UAE - Istanbul ) UK
Not bad, but would like to improve on the Bangkok-Kolkata bit if possible. |
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attitudetravel
Joined: 15 Nov 2007
Posts: 297
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 11:11 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Not bad, but would like to improve on the Bangkok-Kolkata bit if possible. |
Bit tricky.
Only a small number of Asian budget airlines have attempted to establish low cost routes between Southeast Asia and India.
Of these...
1) Nok Air, based in Thailand, is no longer flying to India.
2) Mihin Lanka, based in Sri Lanka, is currently grounded, due to lack of planes.
Which leaves:
3) Air India Express, which you've already checked.
4) Tiger Airways which flies very cheaply to Bangalore and Chennai but only from Singapore.
In the future, there will be two more options:
5) Low cost routes from Malaysia and Thailand to Nepal (and via Nepal to India) on Fly Yeti; and
6) More low cost routes from Malaysia to India on Air Asia.
But these airline routes are not yet operational.
How much time have you got? How about travelling overland on cheap local transport, from Bangkok, southwards through Thailand and down the Malay Peninsula and then flying to Bangalore from Singapore on Tiger Airways? Even then though, the cheapest flight will still set you back GBP 70.
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Alan Lansdowne
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject: Re: the route so far |
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| imustbegoing wrote: |
You know the rest via Kochin - UAE - Istanbul ) UK
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the price i saw on airarabia's site a few days ago has disappeared somewhere and we're left with £125 from Kochin to Istanbul which is going to bump the price up - possibly unavoidably - to over £400, so have to consider other options i think |
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imustbegoing
Joined: 19 May 2008
Age: 32
Posts: 8
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| attitudetravel wrote: |
How much time have you got? How about travelling overland on cheap local transport, from Bangkok, southwards through Thailand and down the Malay Peninsula and then flying to Bangalore from Singapore on Tiger Airways? Even then though, the cheapest flight will still set you back GBP 70. |
sounds interesting - I'd noticed that was a possible option, and might be an around about way of getting there as singapore - india is definitely the cheapest it seems, but unfortunately as per my post above it's back to the drawing board as getting back from india has gone up a bit..
think i'm now open to any alternative cheap intinerary from japan to uk, might be being slightly unrealistic but hoping to back under £350, realize it's only £50 more than the current route, but I can get around that price with an almost direct flight so it'd be nice if it was under.
thanks again for all your help, this has been a first for me trying to treck across the world booking individual flights, so help much appreciated |
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