KLM four day sale - examined |
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines are advertising a four day sale from the 28th March 2008 to the 31st March 2008. We went to KLM's website to check whether we could actually get hold of the cheapest prices - we almost could, but it's a mission to find the lowest flight prices.
The sale
South Africans may in particular be interested in the fact that they advertised flights from London Heathrow to Johannesburg to be from £406 Return (with the dreaded Terms and conditions apply), and flights from Newcastle to Johannesburg to be from £402 Return (once again Terms and conditions apply unfortuanately).
KLM fly from various parts of the UK to South Africa (Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham Tees Valley, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Humberside, Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Norwich), and they have advertised offers from every departure point.
Checking the special
We went to KLM's website to check whether the special is genuine. What was a bit confusing was that when we got to the website their lowest flight price to Johannesbug was advertised as being from £425 Return (not the £406 Return which I'd received in the email).
After clicking book now, I got the following screen, which also had the higher fare of £425 Return (not the £406 Return which I'd received in the email).
I then chose the dates April the 11th to fly from London to Johannesburg and April the 18th to fly back to London from Johannesburg. After a 10 minute wait for their website to continute (but they thanked me for my patience!), I couldn't wait any longer so pressed refresh...and then searched again and they offered a price of £418 for the return flight:
The next step of the booking process was fairly complex. KLM presentd me with a number of departure times on the 11th and 18th. Most of the departure times provided more expensive flight prices (the default wasn't the cheapest). Eventually after a bit of playing around I found the flights which were going for £418 Return. There's a lot KLM can do to improve their booking process (I'll be happy to assist them if they ever read this!). For the record the cheapest flight was as follows:
Departure
From |
London - UK (Heathrow Airport) |
to |
Johannesburg (O.R. Tambo International Airport) |
|---|---|---|---|
Departure/Arrival |
06:30 Fri 11 Apr 2008 |
|
21:10 Fri 11 Apr 2008 |
Via |
Amsterdam (Schiphol) |
||
Return
From |
Johannesburg (O.R. Tambo International Airport) |
to |
London - UK (Heathrow Airport) |
|---|---|---|---|
Departure/Arrival |
00:40 Fri 18 Apr 2008 |
|
17:35 Fri 18 Apr 2008 |
Via |
Nairobi, Amsterdam (Schiphol) |
||
Note that the return flight required a stopover in Nairobi (Kenya) and Amsterdam (Schipol).
KLM compares well with Emirates
Emirates airline often offers the cheapest flights from London to Johannesburg, so I checked their flight prices - the cheapest they could offer is £520 - so the KLM flight price of £418 is a good one relative to Emirates.
Before you book KLM
Before you book KLM, remember that sales offers are not always the cheapest - go check the prices of other airlines flying from the UK to South Africa.
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