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Ranman
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: Korea to Europe (Germany) |
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I'll be teaching in Incheon very soon and I was looking at visiting some old friends in Europe on my vacation. Has anyone had any experiences flying there, particularly Germany, from Korea? Who did you book through and was it terribly expensive? |
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Lazio
Joined: 15 Dec 2010
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 1:34 am Post subject: |
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In peak seasons it will cost you well over 1 million won even if you book ahead. If you find tickets for 1.2 million during the end of year period or in July/Aug than it�s a very good price. In non-peak times if you are lucky and flexible on the travel dates than the best deal you can expect is around 1 million.
There are direct flight to FRA and MUC but one stopover won�t kill you at some other airports in Europe if the price is right. Especially if you are going somewhere else than Frankfurt or Munich so you would need another leg anyways. From most European airports there are flights to several cities in Germany: Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg �
Aeroflot is the cheapest usually. A year or two ago they used some 20 year old B-767s on the Incheon-Moscow leg (an vica-versa) but now they are flying this route with near brand new Airbus 333s.
You can check out Finnair too. They have promos for certain periods so you can get good prices. Search engines usually don�t display results from Finnair so it�s better to have a look at their (Korean) website. Flew with them once between Korea and Europe and have no complaints.
Lufthansa usually doesn�t have good prices.
KLM or Qatar can have promos, the latter will have great service.
Cheapoair for example would give you some ideas about prices and you can check the same ticket on the airline�s website or elsewhere to find the cheapest way.
I bought tickets to Eastern Europe for this year�s Christmas period for about 1,050,000 Krw at Turkish Airlines. I bought it in July though. Two years ago I was able to do the same thing for under 900,000 with Aeroflot� |
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Ranman
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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Are those one-way, or both ways? Considering the distance, 1 million won during the summer actually isn't really bad, considering what I had to pay to go to Germany in 2010.
I've tried looking on STA (student travel), but they don't have listings on flying out of Korea :/ Thanks for the advice though. I have quite a ways till then, so I'll keep looking. |
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JustinC
Joined: 10 Mar 2012 Location: We Are The World!
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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How long are you going for? If you have time it might be cheaper going via a hub - Amsterdam or Bangkok, for example - and doing a city break. |
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Ranman
Joined: 18 Aug 2012
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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JustinC wrote: |
How long are you going for? If you have time it might be cheaper going via a hub - Amsterdam or Bangkok, for example - and doing a city break. |
I'm looking to go for two weeks to M�nster, which is in the northwest of Germany. |
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Lazio
Joined: 15 Dec 2010
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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Ranman wrote: |
Are those one-way, or both ways? Considering the distance, 1 million won during the summer actually isn't really bad, considering what I had to pay to go to Germany in 2010.
I've tried looking on STA (student travel), but they don't have listings on flying out of Korea :/ Thanks for the advice though. I have quite a ways till then, so I'll keep looking. |
The prices I mentioned are round trip. However, the 1 million prices are for non-peak times, usually during spring and fall. In summer you are lucky to buy tickets for 1.2 but can be 1.3-1.4 as well. |
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waynehead
Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Location: Jongno
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 3:40 am Post subject: |
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1 million sounds optimistic to me, even in non-peak times (and if you're working at a hagwon, you won't have time off in those times).
Also, I recommend staying as far away from Aeroflot as you can, even if they have the best price. They have a horrible safety/incident record. |
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Lazio
Joined: 15 Dec 2010
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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waynehead wrote: |
1 million sounds optimistic to me, even in non-peak times (and if you're working at a hagwon, you won't have time off in those times).
Also, I recommend staying as far away from Aeroflot as you can, even if they have the best price. They have a horrible safety/incident record. |
Optimistic, yes but I just wrote above that I was able to buy tickets to Europe for 1,050,000 Krw leaving a few days before Christmas and return in the first week of the new year which is certainly peak season.
Aeroflot indeed had terrible safety records up till the mid 90s, however since than it is no worse than any other major airline. Until about a year ago they used some old Boeing 767s between Incheon and Moscow and frankly I didn�t feel safe on that even though I�m not afraid of flying.
But these days they fly this route with Airbus 330-300s and the oldest one of those in their fleet is 3 years old. They had 6 of them delivered in 2012. |
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