This morning I was looking for interest and found that you can get a return flight from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Harare for £578.96, which is these days an excellent price.

What’s the catch?
No catches, just compromises:

Generally I try and keep the amount of stops needed to a minimum, but this usually means much more expensive tickets. If you are looking for the very cheapest fares, you may need to stop more than once. In this case it is two times, if you fly with Ethiopian Airlines, but they are offering the cheapest fares.

My quote of £578.96, was for travel between Sat 19th June and returning on Thur 1st July, which obviously changes depending on what days you choose:

I got this quote through Ebookers.com that makes it very simple to not only compare the prices of flying on different days, but quickly compare prices between different airlines.

Another on-line travel site that game me a quote of £583.81 for the same days also with Ethiopian Airlines is Lastminute.com:

The good news is that on the way to Harare you will only stop once at Addis Ababa for just over 2 hours, but on the return leg to London, you will stop twice, Lusaka for an hour and then Addis Ababa for 4 hours.

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• Cheap Flights to Zimbabwe from the UK

I try to go back home every year, so every year I am on the look out for cheap flights to Zimbabwe. I have been doing this for over 10 years now and so I would say that I have looked at pretty much every option and travelled on most of the airlines that fly to that part of the world.

So I thought with all this experience, I would pass on a few tips that I have picked up over the years and hopefully make your trip to Zimbabwe not only as cheap as possible, but also hassle free and enjoyable.

Cheap vs Convenience
When you travel anywhere in the world there is always a trade-off between the price of flights and the time it takes to get there. Cheaper flights tend to take you all over the world with many stops and the more expensive ones have less stops or are direct.

Direct Flights to Zimbabwe

With British Airways stopping their direct flights to Zimbabwe from London Heathrow a few years ago, as far as I know the only other way to fly direct to Harare is on Air Zimbabwe who fly from Gatwick airport. What is unusual is that this is often also the cheapest way to get there. Sounds perfect! The problem is things are not as rosy as they seem. Sure many, many people fly every week on Air Zim with no problems, but I have also heard of many instances where the airline has either had to cancel flights or redirect the flight to take certain dignitaries somewhere else without warning, leaving paying customers stranded. How often this happens I am not sure, but I personally know of a few instances and it has also been reported in the press more than a few times: Air Zimbabwe leaves passengers stranded at Gatwick

One Stop

The most common one-stop route to fly to Zimbabwe from the UK is to first go to Johannesburg in South Africa and then catch a connecting flight on to Harare international airport. Other than the direct Air Zim flights these are the least hassle, but are often more expensive than stopping more than once. You can take this route with South African Airways, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic (Swapping with SAA in Joburg). I have also sometimes seen that you can fly from London Heathrow, stopping in Addis Ababa and then onto Harare with Ethiopian Airlines that tends to fairly cheap.

Two or more stops

Two or more stops can be a real pain, but it can save you loads of money. One way to make the pain more bearable is to actually stay in one of the countries on route as part of your holiday. I have done this before with Kenyan Airlines, stopping and spending a week in Kenya, which I highly recommend. Options here include London – Nairobi – Johannesburg – Harare with Kenyan Airlines, London – Amsterdam – Johannesburg – Harare with KLM Airlines, London – Paris (CDG) – Johannesburg – Harare with Air France and London – Frankfurt – Johannesburg – Harare with Lufthansa.

Where to Book Cheap Flight Tickets to Zimbabwe

I have always found that the easiest and quickest way to compare prices is with on-line travel sites like Lastminute.com and Expedia. There are many other sites publish really cheap ticket prices, but never show you the dates and you have to phone them only to find out that the price they are advertising is no longer available or you have to fly between certain dates and often involve at least two stops.

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• Cheap Flights to Zimbabwe: London to Harare £578.96