SkyTeam defector China Southern Airlines is currently allowing you to travel to Australia for as little as £504 (~€587). You can check in two bags weighing no more than 23 kilos without increasing the price. For that price, you can fly to Melbourne and Sydney. A longer layover in Guangzhou (around eight hours) is necessary to get the lowest price.
Our availability calendar highlights all flight dates that have layovers of max. 10 hours. Select your preferred destination, and it will forward you Skyscanner with your selected flight dates. From there, you can choose between OTAs or China Southern’s website for roughly €30 more.
Availability gets broader (and prices even cheaper) if you are willing to stay longer in Guangzhou.
China Southern operates a Boeing 787 on all flights, except Guangzhou-Sydney, which is operated by an Airbus A350. In any case, the seats are in a 3-3-3 configuration. According to AeroLopa, depending on the exact aircraft and seat, you’d typically get 31-inch to 32-inch legroom, a USB socket and share a universal power outlet with your seatmates (only USB in the A350).
Both airlines overfly Russia on their flights from Europe to China. As we mentioned in our recent Air India deal, while this has not caused any issues yet, we leave it to our readers’ judgment whether it is an issue or not.
Search & Book
The fare rules only mention a minimum stay requirement of 6 nights or a Saturday night and a maximum stay of 3 months.
You can use our calendar above that will show you availabilities. Once you selected your dates, it will forward you to metasearch engine kayak.co.uk. While we normally don’t recommend booking through online travel agencies (OTAs), here (considering the two airlines’ websites), the disadvantages are less severe. However, if you’d still like the extra safety of booking with the airline, you can try China Southern’s website.
You can also search more specifically on Google Flights (instructions) for example by setting filters. There, you’ll find more dates than on our calendar above, because we limited the results to those with short layovers. Most of the cheapest dates that require long layovers according to Google are available at a much lower price and with shorter stays in Guangzhou on kayak.
Why is booking with an airline better than with an online travel agency?
More often than not, online travel agencies offer lower fares than airlines do. We still recommend booking with the airlines directly. There are two main reasons for that:
Better Customer Service
In case any problems like delays, cancellations or missed connections arise, you can communicate directly with the airline. The airline has to take care of you because you have a contract with them.
If a travel agency issues your ticket, you may have to reach out to them first. You also depend on your OTA to forward information like flight changes instead of receiving them directly from the airline. In many cases, you may get a prime exhibition of responsibility shifting rather than problem-solving.
This especially applies to premium tickets. You don’t want to spend more than €1,000 to wind up with some budget OTA’s telephone hotline in case anything goes wrong.
Baggage and Other Fees
Economy fares not including hold luggage are industry standard by now. In most cases, travel agencies charge much higher baggage fees than the airlines themselves. If bags are not included in your fare, airlines are often the cheaper alternative.
This also applies to other things like food services, insurances or priority treatment. In almost all cases, you pay less for additional amenities when booking on the airlines’ website.
Mileage
China Southern sells these tickets in booking class T. To give you an example, flying to Sydney would get you:
- 5,290 Award Miles on Flying Blue
- 5,290 Award Miles on Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles
- 5,290 RDM + 1,058 MQD on Delta SkyMiles
Feel free to use our miles calculator to see how many miles your personal itinerary would get you: