Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney: €2,520 China Eastern & Shanghai Airlines Business Class from Budapest

SkyTeam member China Eastern Airlines and its subsidiary Shanghai Airlines have put a decent price tag on premium tickets to Australia and New Zealand. With one (quite lengthy) layover in Shanghai, you can reach Melbourne for as little as €2,520 (~HUF 990,818) with departure from Budapest. Flights to Sydney and Auckland are just slightly more expensive.

Our availability calendar highlights all possible flight dates at the lowest price for trips up to 28 days. It will forward you to our flight search or skyscanner with your selected flight dates.

Flights between Budapest and China are Shanghai Airlines Boeing 787 services. These planes feature lie-flat seats in a 1-2-1 seating pattern. This review by The Points Guy shows a contemporary business class cabin while criticizing the meal quality and trying really hard not to be racist.

China Eastern deploys Airbus A350-900 aircraft between Shanghai and Auckland & Sydney. These feature lie-flat seats in a 1-2-1 seating pattern. The chairs are surrounded by walls and the first row is equipped with sliding doors for maximum privacy. You can find a review of the product with sliding doors here and without them here. An Airbus A330 will take you to Melbourne, featuring a very similar business class cabin.

Search & Book

The fare rules give no sales period for this deal. A minimum stay of seven days is necessary to get the cheapest tickets. You can find tickets at the lowest price between August and November 2023. After that, ticket prices rise by roughly €300, which is still a decent business class fare to Australia.

Google Flights will show you additional availabilities. Despite our best efforts, it seems like these tickets are not available on China Eastern’s website. In this case, you’d have to book them via an online travel agency through our flight search or Skyscanner.

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

Tickets for all flight segments are booking class I. Since flights by Shanghai Airlines have a China Eastern flight number, SkyTeam frequent flyers can still earn a decent amount of miles:

Cover Picture: © jovannig - stock.adobe.com