It looks like Emirates' mid-year sale between Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur/Singapore is back, with $695/$701 return fares to each destination respectively. If travel.com.au's sale info is correct, these fares are for flights between 28 Jun - 30 Nov 2011.
Booking period is between now and 30 June - check out the Flighthacker blog for sample fares.
Good for a full-service airline. In comparison, Qantas is offering $888 'sale' fares to nearby destinations at present. It's not uncommon to get fares around the $1k during non-sale periods.
Do emirates fly direct to these cities? I thought their strategy was to fly in and out of their Dubai hub
Yes they fly direct. They use Singapore and KL as stopover's on a number of there flights to Dubai from Australia
No syd??
not that cheap imo… =/
seen tiger or jetstar do like ~$400-500 return
do you trust tiger to take you to malaysia? you'd probably end up having a heart attack along the way even if you do reach your destination… i know i did and i went from sydney to melbourne only…
Er, what do you mean you would have a heart attack?
1) Tiger flies from Perth to Singapore not Melbourne.
2) Extremley hard to compare either of these companies to emirates. Once you add baggage and meals the gap also becomes much smaller.
This is a very good deal for emirates, usually you would be paying this one way.
Tiger Australia also only uses Airbus A320s. On international flights, wide body aircraft are much more comfortable in my opinion. Four passengers can sit next to the aisles per row instead of two. I always take the aisle seat :-) Larger aircraft are also less affected by turbulence. Emirates over Tiger for me, any day.
One is full service airline, another is no-frills. It depends on what you are after?
Can't really compare a no-frills airline with a full-fledged one. The real cost after adding all the 'extras' like baggage allowance, seat reservation and meals is much higher than the prices quoted. If the savings aren't that big, I'd rather go with the full-service carrier every time.
Some things can't be costed, such as having a good conversation with a stewardess. Priceless. :)
I like that people have raised the comparison and that others have been able to point out the differences :)
I am in Melbourne and I think the last time I looked at a budget flight to Singapore (I think it was AirAsia) it ended up costing … hmmm … almost as much as this :)
The one I looked at stopped in Sydney/Perth first.
Luggage is charged per section. So 4 charges.
I know I could bring a cold lunch but, it's a 9 hour flight so I figured I'd add in the meal.
By the time I calculated it all, it wasn't much cheaper than what was advertised here.
The stopover meant extra time and effort with a 2nd airport.
For the minimal saving, I decided I'd hold out for the Emirates sale :P :)
ur comparing tiger/jetstar with emirate?
Even Qantas is like x100 worse than Emirate
I spoke with someone who's flown economy in QANTAS and Emirates over this particular route.
She'd heard how great Emirates is. She was disappointed that, she did not find anything noticeably better, in economy class in Emirate.
Syl, were you flying economy?
What did you like better about Emirate? :)
Have to agree that Qantas is the worst airline for this route, well, alongside with British Airway. I will never fly with this two airline given any other chance, even if it was tiger or jetstar. Poor service, horrible food, old entertainment systems and crap check-in counter. Always have issue checking in at the airport, in particular, once I had almost been rejected aboard by Qantas because they could not understand that I do not need a visa to enter Singapore as I have the permanent resident stamp in my passport. Then they rushed me in 15 minutes before take off and had everyone staring at me. Another time they refused to help me with my carry on baggage despite my compartment was occupied by another person's bag. In the end I have stuff my bag below the seat and being uncomfortable the whole trip.
At least Emirate staffs are generally helpful and the food is so much better.
As for budget, I suggest going for Jetstar as their new airbus have more spacious seats and it offer direct flight to Singapore. In that case don't bother with the onboard meal and bring a cup noodle with you =D.
Oh, and if you want flexible dates go with Singapore airline as the tickets are amendable for free whereas all the rest charge for changes.
MAS recently (last week or week before) had seats for travel from SYD to KUL return for A$580 all inclusive. I think the A$600 mark is now within the competitive range in the market for this route? I would expect cheaper fares coming out of MEL.
I have flown emirates in the past from melbourne - singapore for $550.00 return
and … your experience with their service?
My experience with Emirates has always been good. And I usually fly SIA.
…damn emirates doesn't go through Singapore, Hong Kong or Malaysia from Sydney… just direct to Dubai from Sydney…
I think it's the only carrier us Melbournians can catch, that goes direct from here to Singapore. :)
On the plus side, you've got more carriers to choose from, to go from Sydney to Singapore direct, in non sale periods … :)
You still have Singapore airline. British ariways, Qantas, Qatar and jetstar =P.
Previous Emirates offer was $560 or so, so this is still slightly more expensive. The recent MAS deal was better too.
We flew Melbourne to KL with Emirates earlier this year. we mainly chose them over other airlines because of the extra baggage they allowed and because they were meant to be superior. It was one of the worst experiences EVER. After we had boarded the plane they realised there was a problem with the plane (we later found out that one of the toilets was not working). We had to sit there for THREE HOURS with only one set of working toilets. They didn't offer any information, food, or drinks and barely apologised at all for the delay. We couldn't even get off the plane and they got annoyed at people who started walking around. It was horrid, uncomfortable and very stuffy.
No compensation for loss of time and change in arrangements that had to be made at the other end.
Oh and also our TA had arranged certain seats for us. Emirates stuffed these up and we all got separated - again no apologies.
I know it was a once off, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
I once was stuck in a SQ A380 for 2 hours, aircraft parked at the terminal gate (doors locked) after a technical fault required onsite repairs by engineers. Can't really blame the airline when s*** like these happens. They don't foresee it. I think it is airport security protocol that you can't disembark? Otherwise why wouldn't SQ let us out too?
I think it was more the way the staff handled it….really rude about it all. I mean…I know its a bad situation but they didn't need to make it worse!
I fly back to Singapore every six months, by far Emirates are the best in terms of services and food, as well as entertainment selections. The only comparable airline is Singapore airline for this route however that costs almost double. Also love that they give out snacks through out the flight upon request (e.g sandwiches and chocolates). End of the day, though, I guess it depends on your luck, my friends all love Singapore airline but I had 2 horrible experiences with them and the other times being great.
P.S normal price for Melbourne/Singapore return would cost around $1050~ $1300, while on certain occasions, you may be able to get ticket for as cheap as $180 (Jetstar) or $500 (Emirates) return. Singapore airline never goes below $800 as far as I can remember, and that was for non-holiday seasons.
I also suggest signing up with their frequent flyer if you fly this route frequently, some of the gifts are pretty decent.
Had the opposite experience on Emirates to KL recently. So much so that we decided we'd only fly Singapore for the next trip later this year, whatever the premium.
Emirates don't come close, service and food was not good, entertainment system was broken and they had no temporary alternative e.g. portable DVD player for the 8 hour flight, attendants blatently ignored my calls repeatedly then did nothing. The food "menu" was a waste of time as they ran out. Took an hour for food to get to us.
Horrible experience.
I had similar experience with Cathy Pacific during a flight to Hong Kong (with the broken entertainment system). However, probably because I made enough noise, I got upgraded to business class on the flight about 30 minutes after take off. Just one thing to suggest if you're taking Singapore airline, do try to get on the new Airbus if you're flying with them as the seats tends to be slightly wider and more comfortable. And requesting for seafood meals before the flight is always good =D.
Jetstar did the route for $180 return??? When was that!? :P
March, I went back for a weekend yum cha session with the family lol. That was with 20kg baggage too. Good thing was, the flight wasn't full either and I got 2 seats to myself for good sleep =D.
a little bit off topic, but you can fly brisbane-singapore return on emirates for ~$715. just booked such flights a few days ago via zuji (was a few dollars cheaper than if you book direct on emirates website). have flown emirates on this route before and for me it's been the best experience i've had for this route out of about a half dozen or so different airlines i've flown with.
the 2:45am departures and 12:40am arrivals (ex-brisbane) are the only minor minuses for me, but great service and entertainment choices.
That option is always present but imho is only good if you are traveling light. For me I always have heavy luggage so flying directly is better in that sense.
I recently did the 2:45am departure/12:40am arrival flight into Brisbane. Flying out was pretty good, but catching a connecting flight at 8am back to Adelaide was a killer. Imagine sitting around in an empty terminal with no shops open for 4 hours when dead tired :-P
haven't sat around in brisbane airport, but have done in brunei (including overnight - but for that i booked an airport hotel room to sleep on a bed), KL's budget terminal (the one air asia uses - mega crowded and hardly a spare seat!), and darwin (probably about as exciting as brisbane airport would have been for that time of day). that's when a laptop (movies) and free wifi come in handy :)
Flew Brisbane<->Singapore with Emirates recently. Overall my experience was really good, with decent seats and an excellent entertainment system. The on board staff seem to speak at least 10 different languages: listen for the announcement when they declare over the PA which languages they understand. Food quality was above average in my opinion. The cabin is nice at night with 'starry night' LED lighting on the ceiling.
Minor negatives:
good deal for flying emirates! ^ of course you can go cheaper on low cost carriers but no point in comparing as they offer different things for different prices.
Why Sydney is being discriminated again?
when it comes to great deal…forget about SYD!!!
I moved out of there anyway! =D
At least you can enjoy the vouchers from staples. Consider yourself lucky you're not in WA (or tassie, so I heard).
From what I've heard, Sydney Airport's fees are too high to attract discount airlines (and presumably, more competitive fares). That's part of the reason why AirAsia dropped their plans for a Sydney - KL route.
wrong, airasia doesn't get permit to fly from kl to sydney from malaysia government. because malaysia government try to protect MAS market share on this route.
Have anyone noticed that Emirates.com.au actually charges $5 more for the same tickets compared to Zuji.com.au
Just curious whats w the differences in prices…
Btw, does anyone believes that SIA/MAS/Qantas is gonna start a price war soon?
Someone posted the other day that he booked through Zuji and their system did not register the booking. His tickets were cancelled despite having paid and getting confirmation. So I think I'd just book with Emirates themselves instead of saving a couple of dollars.
The price difference is probably Zuji sharing some of their agent profits with the customers so their prices will appear more competitive.
get ur zuji price than print or capture the screen and send to flight centre, at least u got price beat from them
Booked directly through emirates a few weeks back for the same price practically.
$2108 return from KL for 3 people. If i hadnt of delayed it was $100 cheaper a week before i booked.
Oh i booked 31 aug to return 14 sept. If i had of booked return 15 sept its $600 return.
Cheap but not bargain material imo.
is this a good deal?