Want a cheap flight from Europe to Asia without loads of layovers? Book budget, book early – plus tips on surviving low-cost journeys and beating jet lag

A ticket from Athens, Greece to Bali, Indonesia on Scoot cost a writer only US$516 with just one layover, taking half as long as an earlier Kiwi.com flight

To minimise the effects of jet lag, don’t adjust your watch upon landing, an insomnia specialist says, and get a window seat – you’ll arrive better rested

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Published: 11:15am, 9 Oct 2022Updated: 12:47pm, 14 Oct 2022

In June, I wrote about how I saved US$1,500 on a flight from Asia to Europe using Kiwi.com, an online travel agent that stitches together itineraries made of flights with different budget airlines at prices that are almost impossible to beat.

The catch? It takes a lot longer to reach your destination than by booking directly with a single airline because of the number of stopovers involved.

In my case, it took 41 hours to fly from Denpasar, Indonesia, to Bucharest, Romania, with layovers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Mumbai, India; and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

But there’s a less obvious cost of booking with Kiwi.com: sleep deprivation and its negative effect on one’s health. I had only about six hours of sleep during my ordeal and suffered from jet lag for weeks after flying.

“We know that if you only get light sleep or sleep at the wrong time, your body releases melatonin – a hormone the brain releases at night to drop your body temperature to prepare you for sleep – and this makes things very difficult for you,” says Dr Delwyn Bartlett, an insomnia specialist at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia.