Windycity23

Hello People!

This is my first post on FlyerTalk, and I am thrilled to be part of this community. Ever since I was a child, I have had a deep fascination with airports and airplanes, which influenced my decision to pursue a career as a mechanical engineer. ( I am a lousy management consultant nowadays though )

Today, I am here to seek advice, but I also want to contribute to the community by sharing my experiences and assisting others in the future!

So here it goes:

I would like to travel to Korea or Japan in mid-September (Ideally from Germany) and I am currently searching for flights. Usually, I am familiar with the airlines that operate in Europe, between Europe and the Middle East, and I can often find good deals on Google Flights. However, since I have never been to the Far East before, I am unsure about my strategy. I am looking for economy class tickets, but if I come across an attractive deal for business class, I would consider it as well.

My main challenge is that even though I have flexibility with both dates and airports I can't find something attractive (I also don't know which Firms are good, does it make sense to fly via Taiwan? etc.) .

For example, if I find a good business class deal departing from Austria, the Netherlands, or Hungary etc., I am willing to travel to those countries to catch the flight. I am also open to flying into a different airport when I return. The issue I am facing is that Google Flights (And other popular websites) does not allow me to set my starting point as entire Europe with a single destination. However, it is possible to select a specific starting airport and search for destinations within a whole country or Europe.

I would greatly appreciate your assistance!

chgoeditor

I'm not sure that's possible. If you go to the Wikipedia pages for the major airports in Japan and Korea, you'll be able to see which airlines fly to them from which destinations, which might allow you to focus your search a bit more tightly.

bpe

Try Matrix ITA; it's owned by Google and might use the same search engine now but it allows more flexibility for searching. It will allow you to select multiple origin airports but they have to be in the same country.

However, you are simply trying to search for too much at once and no flight search engine is going to give you good results. Even if you restrict a search to 20 major airports in Europe to 5 in Japan and Korea, with a week of departure and return dates, across (probably) 20 airlines with multiple routings, in business and economy, that's tens of thousands of possible combinations.

If you do a few test searches you should be able to find patterns that will help you narrow down your searches. Easiest might be to do 10 searches each from the largest few airports in each of 10 departure countries in Europe, to the largest airports in Japan and Korea (SEL, OSA, TYO) and just see what comes up. That will give you ideas of what airlines are reasonable option, and their approximate schedules and price ranges.

guv1976

OP: How much are you willing to spend for Economy Class? For Business Class?

Have you amassed any frequent-flyer miles from your previous travel which you could redeem for an award ticket on this trip?

Windycity23

I want to spend a max 1500€.

Previously, there was a deal available for flying from Budapest to Seoul in Lufthansa business class for approximately 1250€, but unfortunately, it was only for December(I think also January), and I am unable to travel during that month. While flying business class is something I've considered, it's not a must. I would be satisfied with an economy class ticket, especially if I can find a night flight where I can sleep comfortably.

I have some miles in my AMEX account, I prefer not to use them for this trip. I don't accumulate many frequent flyer miles since I don't fly frequently for work or leisure, except for my travels between Turkey and Germany, where I usually opt for budget airlines like Pegasus and Sun Express.

Thank you in advance!
All the Best

Deckter

Unfortunately, you might have noticed that the airlines are running a racket with extremely high prices right now, and you are also travelling in a busy period for those specific countries. Google Flights is a pretty good tool, and sometimes it’s also worth looking at PE prices. For example, LO has fares under 1K for AMS-ICN on some dates in Sep-Oct, and it’s a good product.

mike435

I was writing elsewhere, my trip to asia cost me 800e in economy return with QR this winter. In essence, routes which tend to be cheapest between EU and Asia are to Bangkok, Singapore and Bali (at least in my case, I'm in Croatia). For example, there was a caveat which would open every few days and I could see it clearly on ITA Matrix, and it was long layover in Vienna leading to Bangkok. Sometimes you need to do search for the same rout over different days or even times of a day to catch deals which they occasionally open. I'm planning trip again and not planning to pay more than 800e this autumn. ITA Matrix won't show you possible low cost connections which you can get in EU because they don't include low costs and some other airlines in their engine.

Windycity23

Thank you for the answers. I appreciate it.

I will certainly give ITA Matrix a try to explore flights. I have also planned my flights: I will first fly to Seoul, then to Sapporo, and finally return to Germany. Due to this complex combination, it may not be easy to find cheaper flights anyways.

Deckter

I think it makes more financial sense to book your Seoul-Sapporo ticket separately, either in cash or miles. And if the price difference is not high, I would definitely recommend flying an Asian carrier, they are miles ahead of the European ones, both in terms of seat pitch/size and service. JL 787 in economy is very comfortable.

skimthetrees

You probably need to look at different combinations. It looks like you can find better prices by buying the Seoul-Sapporo flight separately. Here is a multi-city option with separate tickets that is in your range even if adding the flight to Japan.

gerofo

I can recommend EVA air, if you fly out of Munich it seems that Monday is the best day for travel. For 2 weeks the price seems reasonable, for 3 even better (and I think with such an itinerary, it makes sense to travel for 3 weeks).

Windycity23

Thank you so much for searching and making recommendations!

I appreciate it. I will definitely buy Seoul-Sapporo Tickets separately.