Hi all! Within 1,5 month I will be leaving The Netherlands for Bonaire to do an internship at Bonaire Flamingo Airport. I will be paying the ticket myself and I wonder whether there are more ways of flying to Bonaire than flying the direct (EXPENSIVE!) KLM flight to Bonaire. Is it -perhaps- cheaper to fly to Curacao and to fly further with DiviDivi or DAE?
I heard it was also cheaper to book the ticket via a Belgian telephone number?
Does anybody has any tips..?

Regards from a cold Holland!

Heyz..

Via Curacao is often less expensive.
Never heard of the Belgian route, though.
For flights Curacao/Bonaire, check http://www.baibini.com/

Also look for charters. Maybe some carrier (Martinair?) has chartered flights which might be less expensive.

Best of luck!

Hi Th.D.,
You are leaving The Netherlands in the High-season, so the prices are then mostly higher. At the KLM-site you can check the different rates, sometimes it makes a hugh difference if you change a date 1 or 2 days earlier or later. How sooner you made your reservation, mostly how cheaper the price is.

2 alternatives:
Via Curacao is: http://www.arkefly.nl, sometimes they are cheaper then KLM with their flight to Cur. But then offcourse you need a transfer van Cur to Bon. Mostly it is'nt cheaper then a direct flight to Bonaire.

When you are a member of the Dutch Airmiles programm, you can search for special KLM-Airmiles offers. I made a reservation myself last februari via Airmiles http://airmiles.klm.com/airmiles/index.asp . The price: 10000 airmiles and € 400,-- including everything.

There is no other alternative. When you fly from Bruxelles with Air France the price is higher, because you are passing Amsterdam first.
Regards.

Also try airfrance.be airfrance.nl and airfrance.fr
Even thought the flights are operated bij KLM the tickets sometimes differ in price (whitch can be more or less). My next flight to Bonaire goes from Brussels (I live in Antwerp) - Amsterdam - Bonaire and costs about 200 euro less than the flight Amsterdam-Bonaire on the same day.....
ArkeFly is also a very good option especcially if you can book a flight Cur-Bon upfront.
Enjoy your stay!

Thanks for your replies!

I checked Airfrance and Arke:
Airfrance was (on the same date) 30 Euro more expensive. One can only fly Arkefly when one will return within one month.
However I did some research and found out that people younger than 26 are able to request a youth card with which one can acquire 200 euro discount!! So this seems to be the best deal!

Well great! Bonaire here I come (with 200 euro deduction!)

Cheers,
Thomas

how about checking out flights from other European cities to either Curacao or Aruba? Maybe you can find very cheap charter flights that will pay for the cost of the connections.

Airlines sometimes have what are called "hidden city pairs" where the fares are much cheaper if you start somewhere other than "home" or continue on to a more-distant city. For example, if I fly Washington, DC to Oxnard (California) through Los Angeles, I pay about 2/3 what I would pay if I only flew to LA (yet I am on the same flight to/from LA). Never have been able to figure out why, but it works out that way. Key is you MUST fly to the final city (i.e., you can't get off at the intermediate point), or the airline will cancel all the remaining flights. Don't know if that works as well for flights from Europe, but if you can start somewhere other than Amsterdam, you might find lower fares even when you connect through AMS.

There is not a lot of competition on the Europe to Bonaire route, so KLM/Air France is not really forced to attract additional foreign/non-local customers to fillup empty seats.