Cheap flights with Kiwi.com saved me US$1,500 but was it worth it? My 41-hour journey from Asia to Europe
- A seasoned travel writer used Kiwi.com to find the cheapest flights for a budget trip from Indonesia to Romania after the one-way fare had more than doubled
- His route, which took him via Vietnam, India and the UAE, involved lengthy layovers, little sleep and long security queues – so would he recommend it?
Before Covid-19 struck, I flew around the world to produce travel stores for about 10 months of every year. But for the past two-and-a-half years I haven’t set foot far outside my home in Indonesia. As things slowly returned to normal, I decided to fly to Europe to reboot my career, starting in Romania.
But I was shocked to discover the going rate for the most direct one-way fare from Denpasar, on Indonesia’s Bali island, to Bucharest, the Romanian capital – with only one stop – had skyrocketed to US$2,200. That’s more than double what I paid when I took the same route in 2019, caused by a perfect storm of surging oil prices, limited flights, sudden demand, supply-chain shenanigans and the war in Ukraine.
I didn’t have to knock up a spreadsheet to deduce that with airfares this high, working as a travel writer in Europe or any other long-haul destination no longer made financial sense.
But then I stumbled upon Kiwi.com – one of a new breed of online travel agent that uses artificial intelligence to scour the web for the cheapest flights and creates complex itineraries that will take you anywhere you want for a fraction of the price that legacy airlines are now charging.