reasonable flights

whilst looking at the travel insurance thing for steve and jan I noticed that moneysupermarket have a flight section,.

i just did a seaarch for us for the start of april and i found emirates flights FROM GLASGOW for ?1600 for the 4 of us...

not mega mega cheap I know, but at this fairly short notice, i'm quite happy with that,,

Hi Natty ( & a merry christmas)

We have been quoted ?1700 in September with Singapore through Expedia. My Mum is in NZ at the 'mo and flew with Emirates - just as good as Singapore & better than Air New Zealand ( its the LA touch down that spoiled this one). But two things have been put into our boiling pot for flight selection. Touching down at Singapore give a much shorter flight time for the leg into Auckland. Plus they have a transit hotel in the departure lounge where you can rent a room & use th e pool for 8 hours (i think for $58 -sinagpore dollars), a google search for Changi airport will find it for you. Emirates has a much longer flight time into Auckland. Air New Zealand have whopping luggage allowances - 64kg each. If you plan to live out of a suitcase for a while - it might be an option.

Our current plan is to land in AKL, shop round for a decent set of wheels with the biggest set of bull bars on the front and at least 12 spot lights (not), then after a couple of days R&R in AKL, weave our way to wellington stopping of at Rotorua, Taupo, Napier etc stopping at motorlodges of camping parks. Our provisional date is 17th Sept out of the UK, and I am due to start work in October.

Can anyone recommend any car dealers in AKL? I have trawled through trademe & autobase, but as with most things personal recommendatio cant be beaten.

Cheers

Nick

PS Sorry its a bit ramble-ey, but Santa managed to get a four and a half gallon barrel of local real ale down the chimney :icon_biggrin: --trying to clear it off before the new year :icon_lol:

Yes , Merry Christmas to you two as well, and a happy new year when it comes..

[quote:87495b7031]shop round for a decent set of wheels with the biggest set of bull bars on the front and at least 12 spot lights [/quote:87495b7031]

sounds like a bighorn to me..

i did notice that the flight i mentioned was split into 4 hops of 7 hours..
the stop at changi only looks like a refuel.. (its a 20 minute turn around)
The long stop is in Melbourne..

i'm avoiding the LA route after hearing the horror stories about the facilities there..
i'm dreading all that time on a plane with our 2 anyway, so im thinking the 4 hops might be good..

Four hops sounds good on paper, but the upheaval / de-camping from plane to plane isnt much fun. Unless you have a hotel room at each "hop" its isnt much fun just sitting about in departure lounges. At least on board a plane you know where the little buggers are!! And there are few "retail opportunities", which is good for the bank balance!

The long stop in Melborne sounds good, it will give the troops time to re-cover before the final assault on NZ proper!

whats your plans for when you land, for the first few weeks anyway?

Good luck with th eflight search

Cheers

Nick

we've been really lucky as it goes..
the job offer includes a car and a house with paid rent for the first couple of months..
so all that stuff will be sorted upon arrival..

It looks like i will still be job hunting, so what with getting the kids settled and finding a job, i'm sure we'll be busy..
it's all so surreal at the minute though.

i hear what your saying about the flights...
might rethink and fly from london with a one stop effort..

Emirates is a sneaky one sometimes. When Welshgirls cousin came for a visit, she flew with Emirates with the 3 stop flightplan. Trouble is, they decided to miss Singapore and went straight from Dubai to Australia - well over a 13 hour trip! I think it turned out to be 7 hours UK to Dubai, over 13 hours Dubai to Oz, then around 4 hours Oz to Aucks.

Doesn't sound too bad, but with waits in the airports is was over a 30 hour journey in all!

We're flying with Thai Air from here and the first leg will be about 7 hours, calling in on Pakistan briefly on the way to Bangkok. Have a 7 hour stop in Bangkok and then it's about a 13 hour hop down to Aucks, which I'm not looking forward to. That'll be about 30 hours under way altogether. On the way back it's a 40 1/2 hour stint from Aucks to Muscat but, at least, we have a long stopover in Bangkok to break the journey up. I'll be able to give some feedback on Thai Air once I've sampled their service.

I'd have thought Emirates would have been cheaper from this neck of the woods, but Thai came out on top and that's still quite a bit more than you could be paying from the UK. This isn't the first time we've commented that the Middle East is certainly an expensive place to fly out from.

Well done everyone, very useful thread this one. Was gonna start a thread along similar lines.

On flights a recommendation from me - www.cheapestflights.co.uk
not to be confused with www.cheapflights.com which is ok but generall the former is better I've found.

On cars, a question. How much is everyone budgetting for some wheels. I've found cars more expensive over there on all the searches I've done, with a 1995-97 car cisting about ?2k, when they'd cost almost half that here. I can't afford to go more then that really. How much did those who've already arrived pay? (sorry if it's a bit personal).
Also I thought that cars would be cheaper in AKL than elsewhere so a quick buck could be made if you sell upon settling further south. What do people think?

i thought the cars seemed fairly reasonable to be honest Stevey.

Especially some of the Japanese efforts..
Was looking at a Subaru Imprezza the other day for 5000 dollars..
not the , throw an apple up the exhaust from 300yds sprty type, it was a 1500 estate..

good shout on the flights.. will be checking that out later..

cheers

Cars can vary hugely in price, depending on where you look. We've seen the same make/model/year car that we have for anything from $8000 to $19,990.

If you look on somewhere like trademe, you'll usually get a bargain if you look carefully.

Some nice cheap cars to look for, including problems, are:

Mitsubishi Diamante - 2.5 - 3.5ltr , engine can be a bit rattly in some.
Toyota Windom - Big luxury 3.0ltr car, no real problems except petrol!
Nissan Bluebird - Not very attractive, but good solid work horse! They don't carry the stigma of the UK with them here :icon_lol: