New Zealand for Christmas

A friend is looking for flights to New Zealand for Christmas - travelling out around 16th December, and getting back by 6th January.

He wants to stop in Sydney for a few days on the way out, and stop in Melbourne for a few days on the way back.

For these type of multi city itineraries, I tend to start with Kayak or Skyscanner

And the results are pretty eye watering, as you might expect ... despite being 3 stops on the first leg ... and that's without checking if these are consolidated tickets

The cheapest routing with less than three stops is also 10 hours shorter journey time on the first leg

Another option is to split up the trip into a London - Australia trip, and an Australia - NZ trip

So looking at the SYD - CHC - MEL ... it's close to £500

Or booked separately as two singles the cheapest flights would cost even more [£231 + £277] 

Then looking at the London - Australia routings ... a LON - SYD and MEL - LON open jaw routing is coming in under £1,200

Departing London on Sunday 17th December would save £100 off this price

Departing Melbourne on Thursday 4th January would be the same price

And finally, another option is a simple London - Sydney return (with an extra single from Melbourne to Sydney) - more expensive than the open jaw

or a simple London - Melbourne return (with an extra single from Sydney to Melbourne) - again more expensive than the open jaw

Another benefit from booking one open jaw ticket is that on entering New Zealand, you can show a return flight out of the country - although that may not be of concern depending on passport requirements!

So my advice is to book the China Southern flights directly on the airline website now [after booking travel insurance!] ... and then keep an eye on the Australia - CHC flights  ... and book them if a deal pops up, or if they don't seem to be changing

Although before doing anything, it's probably worth calling up a couple of bricks and mortar travel agents to see if they have any deals

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