This is one for the aviation nutters out there that just love flying (and presumably don’t have a family to drag along, given that they might not appreciate your antics). It’s also not a post saying “use your miles and points, and you can fly for free”.
However, this is a post for you if you fly between East Asia and Europe often (either because your family lives on another continent like mine, or for business travel), and you love flying aspirational premium economy and business class products. That’s unless you’ve done this for a while and know the below tips and tricks – I must confess that I don’t know all the tips and tricks when trying to find cheap O&D fares, though I’ve been reviewing flights for a while and have picked up some general observations.
How do you bring down airfare when flying between Europe and East Asia in a premium cabin, particularly if you’re booking one-way segments? The key is to choose your origin wisely, and use low-cost airlines to your advantage when positioning to your origin.
When do I use cash to book my flight tickets?
Since I spend almost all of my spending on rewards credit cards, I generally like using miles and points to book my flight tickets. However, sometimes I have to fly over peak season, particularly between London and Hong Kong – I can’t bank on award availability during those times, especially in a premium cabin. Sometimes I try and manipulate my origin and destination just to find award space, though that’s a topic for another post.
The plus side of using cash to book flight tickets is that there’s much more availability, and since pricing is hugely supply-and-demand weighted based on the O&D combo, there’s a lot more flexibility to choose a date that works for you. For example, premium economy award space one-way between Shanghai and London is only available on very specific dates, though a cash fare is consistently £528 (HK$5,547) on Finnair, substantially cheaper than what you’d expect for a premium economy longhaul product – even over Christmas!
Finnair’s product runs for as low as £528 one-way between East Asia and London
Obviously I’ve got a disproportionate incentive to diversify the airline products I fly compared to the next person, though generally I think it’s worth knowing these tips and tricks if you fly quite frequently, or have any interest in trying new cabin products.
The one search engine I use for flight pricing
When using cash, I only use one search engine to find fares. That’s because Google Flights completely destroys their industry competitors in terms of pricing accuracy, inclusion of different airlines, and UI. Not only are prices accurate around 95% of the time (very, very rarely will you see a notification saying “Sorry, the price you previously saw has changed”), but you can also click to book the flight directly with most airlines, which is a game changer when I’m trying to find a cheaper fare.
I’m generally all for supporting small businesses that give passengers more visibility of their travel options, though Google has smashed this one out of the park. I’ll be using Google Flights for the foreseeable, unless something changes.
When do you want to book?
Obviously this varies on a case-by-case basis, though generally I try and book less than 4-6 months out when paying cash. I find that sometimes the “cheaper” deals aren’t filed yet prior to 6 months before, so pricing logic defaults to a more expensive pricing if I book too early. I don’t generally book less than a month ahead unless my travel plans change, or there’s a ridiculously cheap low-season fare I change my plans to take advantage of.
Perhaps there’s a better way to manipulate this (e.g. booking right when 2025Q4 starts), though I’m not an expert in this regard.
Case study: How I try and bring down airfare on a one-way between East Asia and Europe
This is how I think whenever I’m trying to find a one-way itinerary between East Asia and Europe. Let’s say I want to fly from London to Tokyo sometime next year in premium economy. If I wanted to do this one-way in April 2026, the cheapest option includes LOT and Asiana, though I have to transfer from Seoul Incheon to Seoul Gimpo (not that I wouldn’t have done that, but I’m sure there’s a better option, given that the price is still £1,160/HK$12,185 one-way).
However, if I change my origin to Frankfurt, the price immediately dips to £767 (HK$8,057), and I can even fly JAL premium economy on the second leg if I wanted to.
I looked at flights out of Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, etc. – the most sensible flight I can fly seems to be in Vietnam Airlines’ premium economy cabin, which I can get on a one-way flight for £656 (HK$6,889).
Generally I find that playing around with the origin has a much greater effect than playing with the destination. That’s because usually, pricing management usually groups logic based on origin, before making tweaks depending on the destinations. So, even if I were to fly into Seoul, Shanghai, etc. I wouldn’t find much of an effect.
Okay, so how do I get from London to Paris? Sure I can take the Eurostar, though Eurostar fares are only cheap when I’m booking far enough in advance. I’d most likely fly – British Airways is more expensive than easyJet in this case (I’d have to rule out all of the flights that arrive Paris after 12 PM, given that my Vietnam Airlines flight would leave at 2 PM), though I’d be able to bring my carry-on for free, so it’d offset the cost and end up being the cheaper option. I’d probably personally go for the 8:40 AM flight below, since the 6:40 AM flight would leave me in a hard place in terms of getting to Heathrow.
Obviously if you’re leaving early in the morning, you’ll have to add any hotel costs into the equation as well. Make sure you keep an eye on when your flight departs from the origin you’ve chosen. However, in this case I’m saving £400 by flying out of Paris, and I’m unlikely to get a hotel that costs that much.
What if I want to fly a very specific cabin product?
Okay, let’s say I wanted to fly ANA’s The Room, and didn’t mind positioning to my origin location. Even if I had date flexibility, The Room from Haneda to London is £2,372 (HK$24,898) one-way.
Pricing is even more ridiculously expensive out of most other Asian ports, to the point where it’s cheaper for me to book as two separate segments instead.
However, after playing around, I managed to find that fares are £1,523 (HK$15,896) one-way from Seoul Gimpo – still not cheap by any means, though definitely the most accessible I’ve seen for ANA’s The Room.
Do note that if you’re manipulating your origin to try and catch a specific airline product, pricing ends up being cheaper out of Asia than out of Europe for many Asian carriers. I find Vietnamese and Chinese airlines to be an exception to this rule.
Don’t fly straight out of Haneda if you want to try this ANA 777
This tactic isn’t really worth it when flying economy
I do think that manipulating your origin is more worth it when you’re flying in a premium cabin. If you’re flying in economy, generally you won’t be spending as much on a plane ticket unless you’re flying over peak season, and the cost to position to your origin will be worth a relatively greater amount.
I’d say that unless prices are extremely inflated for the date you want to fly, you’re best off just booking a straight itinerary through to your destination if you’re in economy.
Manipulating your origin is less worthwhile if you’re flying economy
Low-cost airlines are your friend
One of the drawbacks of this tactic is that flying a low-cost airlines is more or less inevitable, especially by the origin. Sometimes it might make sense to redeem miles from where you live to the origin you’ve picked, though most of the time you’ll have to rough it on the shorthaul in order to fly comfortably on the longhaul. You can’t be precious about avoiding low-cost airlines if you want to protect the longhaul segment, so make sure you’re familiar with best practice onboard a low-cost carrier.
You can’t be precious about not flying low-cost airlines using this method
What are the European origin airports that are more likely to have cheap airfare?
Generally when searching for a cheap flight, you’re best off looking for a large airport in the European Union. While you might intuitively think that smaller, less well-known airports will have cheaper pricing, realistically their supply is also much lower, so that doesn’t end up being the case.
Here’s a list of European airports I’ve generally found airfare to be cheapest out of:
- Dublin (DUB)
- Frankfurt (FRA)
- Madrid (MAD)
- Paris (CDG) – perhaps surprisingly!
- Stockholm (ARN)
- Prague (PRG)
- Rome (FCO)
I’ve generally not had much luck with (though still have a look during your Google Flights search):
- London (LHR/LGW/etc.) – or anywhere in the UK, due to the Air Passenger Duty tax on premium cabin flights
- Amsterdam (AMS) – while there’s occasionally a cheap flight or two, Schiphol tends to put heavy taxes and flight caps which are carried forward to the passenger
- Zurich (ZRH)
- Milan (MXP/LIN)
- Oslo (OSL), Copenhagen (CPH) and Helsinki (HEL) – I have had less luck out of these airports generally compared to Stockholm
- Anywhere in the Balkans – flights are surprisingly expensive out of there!
Flights tend to be fairly cheap out of Stockholm (ARN)
What about Colombo, Cairo, and Casablanca?
The 3 C’s (Colombo, Cairo, and Casablanca) historically were the three airports where it was easiest to get cheap airfare. While you can still get good fare deals out of these airports, I find that post-COVID these airports are no longer the industry leaders for cheap airfare. Perhaps Cairo would be my frontrunner out of the three, though positioning to Cairo from Europe isn’t necessarily cheap or convenient.
What are the East Asian origin airports that are more likely to have cheap airfare?
Here are the airports in East Asia where I’ve been able to find the cheapest origin fares:
- Bangkok (BKK) or Phuket (HKT)
- Seoul (ICN/GMP)
- Shanghai (PVG)
- Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
I haven’t had as much luck out of, perhaps unsurprisingly:
- Singapore (SIN)
- Hong Kong (HKG)
- Taipei (TPE)
- Manila (MNL)
- Colombo (CMB) – there was definitely an era where airfare from Colombo was better than it now is
- Tokyo (HND/NRT), or anywhere in Japan
- Phnom Penh (KTI) or Siem Reap (SAI)
- Jakarta (CGK) – surprisingly less good than I was expecting
- Pricing seems to vary throughout China, though I haven’t had much luck outside of Shanghai (I’ve struggled out of Shenzhen/SZX)
Kuala Lumpur (KUL) has good pricing, though even then I find Seoul and Shanghai to be better
A few other observations
Here are a few other observations I have with Europe-East Asia flight pricing:
- Generally I tend to avoid booking an itinerary out of the UK in a premium cabin, since you’re subject to the Air Passenger Duty tax (APD): this is similarly extortionate whether you’re flying in premium economy or business class
- If you’re flying a Japanese carrier, typically prices tend to be hugely inflated especially on one-way flights; the only exception is very specific Asia-Europe O&D one-ways
- Out of the airlines I’ve flown, it seems that Lufthansa and Finnair are the cheapest European carriers that tend to consistently have the cheapest one-stop pricing, whereas the cheapest Asian carriers tend to be the Chinese carriers and Vietnam Airlines (both in premium economy and business class). You can find great gems on Air France/KLM, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar
- Airlines can charge much less just for you to connect: for example, British Airways routinely charges £1,500+ (HK$15,700+) for London-Hong Kong one-way in premium economy, though out of Madrid it can be as low as £665 (HK$6,979). The same is true for Cathay Pacific
- Make sure you look out for low-cost airlines operating these routes, as they can have attractive fares (e.g. Frankfurt-Seoul on T’Way Air, or Athens-Singapore on Scoot)
Two people sitting next to each other in British Airways could’ve paid very different fares, just because one came from Madrid
Conclusion
When flying between East Asia and Europe, make sure that you’re looking at fares out of origin airports that you’re willing to position to, in order to maximise every opportunity to bring down your airfare. By doing so, you might be subjecting yourself to a couple more low-cost segments and overall flying time, though you’ve got a much higher chance of securing a flight on an aspirational cabin product.
What’s the best fare you’ve gotten by manipulating your origin airport?