Where to find cheap flights.

[Rustynuts]

Right peoples, the daughter and her boyfriend have decided to go to Greece to stay with my sister in law (who lives out there) so they need a return flight for a weeks stay near Athens. I've no experience in booking flights, so I've spent the last couple of hours trawling the web trying to find somewhere which will tell me what I need to know. No luck.

Everything I've come across points to "Tell us where you want to fly from, fly to, when you want to go etc." and when you've filled in all the details, it then tells you no-one flies from Teesside Airport to Athens so try another departure point. Is there anywhere which tells me who flies to Athens, which airports you can fly from, or best of all would be somewhere I can put in "Athens" with an open timetable and it'll tell me when flights are available, from where, and how much. There's not much pressure on having to go on a specific day as they have accomodation sorted, and just need to get there, so any departure dates within the next couple of weeks will be fine.

Help me out with this one, cos it's doing my head in. I thought t'internet was supposed to be easier for you.

[DHA]

Athens is not a busy route network from the UK I am afraid. BA and Olympic fly from Heathrow to Athens but no one else. If you select direct flights that might limit the choice you have.

What about Manchester to Athens or is that too far a drive?

[ncr666]

Depending on dates you can fly Manchester to Athens with Olympic for approx £280pp (based flying 14-21 Aug.

Thomas Cook website - you can fly from Teeside to Heathrow with BMI then onto Athens with Olympic all for the price of approx £453pp

You can also fly Durham Tees Valley via Amsterdam to Athens with KLM but again this is not cheap.

ncr666

[Rustynuts]

@DHA:

Manchester is better than London, as it's only about 1 1/2 hours from us. I was getting the impression that Athens wasn't an easy place to get to, and it was going to be expensive.

@ncr666:

Checked KLM as they kept coming up on the search engines but again, not cheap as you say. Daughter's decided this year that she wants to go away with the boyfriend (as we can't afford a holiday this year, road accidents taking their toll) so she's been working part time to save up. She's saved £100 and thinks she's going to get a cheap flight for £50 or so and have some spending money aswell. Big surprise, eh?

Is there any benefit to looking at (or is there anywhere to look?) really last minute flights. If so we could have her packed up and go the next day without too much trouble.

Thanks for the replies, I have no idea with flying as usually go by boat. The wife won't fly, and gets scared driving past the airport when we go to Teesside.

[ncr666]

You could try lastminute.com or your local travel agent. Sometimes they have some good deals.

ncr666

[Rustynuts]

lastminute.com is one of the first places I tried. For flights you have to put in where you're flying from, flying to, when you want to go, when you're coming back etc. and then comes up with a ridiculous fare of £330 per person for 2 days from now (based on Manchester and staying for a week). Yet you can book a holiday with them by just saying where you want to go, when you want to go (giving a window of 5 days either side) and it lists all available holidays. It gives you a weeks holiday in a hotel, half board for £169 per person. That's more like it, but knock off the hotel bit and just have the flight, you'd expect to pay something like £60.

Why don't they use the same search format for just flights as they do for holidays. Feckers!

[Soapsuds]

Rusty - try the folowing link - it link yu to the Athens Airport website and there is a scheduled flight information PDF for download - sumer timetable.

Atehns Airport Timetable

Remember when looking through the timetable, you can get flights from the UK to major airline hubs.

So for example, if it shows Lufthansa flying in, try and get a flight from UK to Athens, VIA Frankfurt. KLM go via Schipol (and usually loose your baggage in the process) etc. etc.......

HTH!?

[Rustynuts]

Right, she's (we've) decided she's not going, as the only flights they can get and afford etc. are in November. She had it all planned with a flight from Teesside down to Gatwick, and a brief stop of 6 hours in the airport until the flight to Athens in the morning, until I pointed out that she was actually going to be at school at the time she was planning all this. She thought she could just "take a week off" and go on holiday so I put her right on that score.

Maybe she's learned something from this, like how much holidays cost when we go abroad as a family etc. and perhaps she'll appreciate next years trip if we can afford it.

Thanks for the help anyway, lads.

[DHA]

No worries!