Just to let you good folks know I've booked flights with klm for september for the wife and me from brum. I used air miles for my ticket but it still cost about 350quid (taxes etc) and about 800 for the wifes. I've also paid for economy comfort there and back which I appear to have got free and had to pay 90 quid for the wife. There was a big difference in price from the end of august to the start of september. September prices seem to be a few hundred quid cheaper.
Last month was 300 quid cheaper than the cheapest in September on KLM, August is one of the good surfing months I think so the prices go up. If you got the economy comfort free then you probably have pretty high flying blue status Stu? A tip, if you are paying by air miles and you have status Gold or Platinum then your ticket is effectively "fully flexible economy" and they will offer you an upgrade to business class at the last minute for around 200 Euros for the AMS-MNL leg. I managed to get that on last Decembers outgoing flight, particularly nice as the outgoing leg was a 50% mile Promo so I only paid 20,000 miles and a bit of cash and got myself (last time probably) a very nice business class trip out.
I have a theory as to KLM's pricing just now. At present they just tough it out and ask almost full prices for all seats at a horizon of about 3 months out from now, after that allthe prices follow the seasonal trends i.e. Christmas is expensive, All Saints is expensive Easter the same and so on. As you get closer to the flight date and the flights are just not filling up you start to see the rock bottom deals like last months 475 quid return, I paid just over 600 in the end, but if I had listened to my boss I would have got the 475 quid deal as it became available for my dates just 2 days after I lost my bottle and bought at 600 The 475 deal had been available at various times thoughout the month but it kept changing available dates sometimes every few hours. Anyway as it turned out my outbound flight was quite busy but the return flight was noticeably under sold, then again it was a 777-200 ER on the way out and a 777-300 ER on the way back so there were a lot more seats on the return flight. So in essence I think just now it is worth waiting till the last minute to buy with KLM as I don't think they are selling out like they used to and a lot of good deals pop up at the last minute. Trouble is you have to keep monitoring the site to get a feel for the current trends and that is a bit time consuming, however I will be doing this for a while and will try to report regularly to the forum on my observations. This is my last year as Flying Blue Elite, sadly my status runs out at the end of next march and I can't see me going over again before that unless there are miles promos available near Christmas like there was last year, I'm going to miss that 46 kilo baggage allowance that I have had for the last 5 years They did give me a nice present on my way back last Sunday which was an upgrade on the Amsterdam-Liverpool leg sadly it turned out to be only half an upgrade as they did not have the full package available (they had not planned for the meals) but the steward apologised and tried to make up for it by giving me nearly 3/4 of a bottle of wine (3 of the small ones ) I was well puggled by the time I got home
Well even out as far as March there are now deals on KLM as low as £643 return, even for the 50 something day visit you are looking for Sean, trouble is you might not get the exact number of days you want at the very cheapest price but there are certainly a lot of good deals coming on-stream now.
Elsa and I have booked 3 weeks off in October hoping to fly to Philippines, but still haven't got a flight yet, so I'll keep watching KLM for any good deals. Ideally we would use Cardiff, but Brum or Manc seem cheaper. Thanks for the heads up. edit: Just looked at rail fares to Brum airport, according to Nat Rail Enquires I can get direct train Aberystwyth directly into Birmingham International Airport, but I think they mean New Street then some other train New Street to Airport?
me too keep looking but i want to go december coz work closes for abut 3 weeks over christmas to newyear so flights not cheap but its best time for me I went with qatarairways last time for £760, I could get the same would be good but like cheaper may leave going to 31st december flights a little cheaper then
Well, I can book a flight out from the 24th of January, but that has a few disadvantages. 1 Being a few flights back require a nightly stopover.. However, if I book from January 26th, I land on the 27th so can stay until March 26th... Which is now coming in at £655 (but fluctuates)
Nice tip about the airmiles thing and the fly blue status. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever get that high up, I'm presently at silver level
I'm silver just now too and they have made it harder to earn miles, so it's much harder to get and keep status now. They may also offer this paid upgrade to silver status members too but I've not personally experienced it, although one encouraging thing was that I got a free upgrade to Business on my final leg AMS-LPL last month, just wish they had given me it on the MNL-AMS leg (been upgraded free 4 or 5 times over the last 7 years).
Thats pretty good going really. Did you get the food with the seat? I know sometimes you'll get the seat but they've not taken into account preparing the food. The best deal i had was a good few years ago and it was with KLM or emerites but they offered me an upgrade seat from manila to the connecting airport (can't remember which one) for the hefty sum of $200!!!! Let me think about that................................OH YES PLEASE!!!
I must be the only person alive that has never been offered an upgrade, and left to languish in steerage class....
Always got the full deal on all the long haul upgrades, that last one AMS-LPL was a last minute thing and they didn't have the meals available but they gave me extra wine I once got an short haul upgrade GLA-AMS that vanished by the time I reached the plane as the all the business class seats were broken I forgot to say that the 4 or 5 upgrades I referred to over the last 7 years were all the long haul AMS-MNL flights I even got the Dutch Delft Blue ornament gift on those flights. Sadly those days are over
Ach one day Dom, one day It is a lot easier if you travel alone, there was one time that I was on my way home and I had a good seat but was desperately hoping to get a better one but they put us on the plane without the hoped for call to the front. There I was stuck next to a big Chinese guy and a big Filipino and as you know I'm pretty big too so even though I had the extra legroom seat at the front it was still cramped and I like a window seat so it's often hard to get out to go to the loo. Anyway 30 minutes into the flight the stewardess appeared and apologised to us but could she move us up front as there was a family at the back whose entertainment system was not working, I almost kissed her they moved all three of us big blokes but as the seats are much wider up front it was now much nicer. The rule of thumb is this, if the flight is really busy they will pick the Flying Blue members with highest status and then they will filter down to those with the highest number of air miles, just my theory anyway. At the time I was getting upgraded often I had platinum status and about 450,000 flying blue air miles only got 100,000 left now but if I am lucky that could be two promo full return flights to Manila, otherwise I will keep them long term for my emergency journey either in or out of the Phils.
Its a good theory and it certainly makes sense that they'd go down the list of fly blue members starting with the higher cards etc. My airmiles flight was 80,000 in total which isn't to bad. I was considering trying to save them to try to upgrade the seats but I'm well short of the mark. As and when we emigrate I'd like to fly us out business class but thats in the several thousand area. Anyway that could be a little way off yet, still got to finish the house in the uk ready for renting (hopefully) and then try to find a resonable area to live out there. I think we'll be renting for atleast 12-18 months at first mainly due to the amount of grief people seem to have out there when trying to buy houses let alone building.
You can upgrade a full price fully flexible economy ticket to business for 40,000 miles per person and I would guess you would be buying a one way ticket as you should be applying for the 13A visa which lets you live there so the return ticket requirement does not apply. So it would cost you 80,000 miles total to upgrade both of you and about 1000 quid each for your one way tickets. I agree renting is the way to go until you know exactly how things work out there in terms of the construction industry and property market.
