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Looking for cheap family flights? This is how we actually book ours, two adults and one small child out of Brisbane, with the real fares from our trips attached.
Most cheap flight advice is written for one person with a backpack. Booking for three changes the maths, a $40 jump per seat is $120 by the time you hit pay, and that is before anyone has picked a seat or checked a bag.
Jomana does the hunting in our house, she is the one who finds the connection nobody else spotted. Murray handles the rest, the check-ins, the bags and the pram. Between us we have flown Jetstar to Hobart and Cairns, Virgin and Hawaiian Airlines to Hawaii, and a fair few short hops in between. This is what we learned, including the bits that cost us.
In this guide
- What our flights actually cost
- Search for one seat first
- Set the alert, then wait
- The true cost of a cheap fare
- The fare we keep booking
- What we’d do differently
- FAQs
The receipts
What Our Family Flights Actually Cost
Real numbers first, because that is the whole point of this site.
| Flight | Airline | Who | What we paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisbane to Sydney return | Virgin Australia | 3 people | $683.88 AUD |
| Sydney to Honolulu return | Hawaiian Airlines | 2 adults and a toddler | $2,603.68 AUD |
| Oahu to Maui and back | Hawaiian Airlines | 3 people | $865.20 USD |
All three are from our March 2025 Hawaii trip, and prices have moved since, so treat them as a benchmark, not a quote. Closer to home we flew Jetstar to Hobart for our Tasmania trip and to Cairns in April 2026, a 6am departure landing at 8:30am.
Cheap family flights at a glance
- ✓ Search one seat first. If the price per seat jumps when you search for three, the cheap seats are running out.
- ✓ Set an alert before you book. Let I Want That Flight watch the route for you.
- ✓ Check in the baby kit. Jetstar has let us check the pram and car seat for free, confirm the current rules before you pack.
- ✓ Ask about the pram at check-in. Gate or oversized baggage changes by airport and sometimes by flight.
- ✓ Price the whole trip. Bags, seats, transfers and any overnight stop all count.
The trick most families miss
Search for One Seat Before You Search for Three
Airlines release seats in batches at each price, called fare buckets. When the cheapest batch only has two seats left and you search for three, the booking system usually prices all three seats at the next level up, not just the extra one.
So run the search twice. Once for a single adult, then once for the whole family. If the per-seat price jumps between the two, the cheap seats are nearly gone, and you have found it out before you paid for it.
If the gap is big, splitting the booking can be worth it, two seats on one booking and one on another. Keep your child and at least one parent on the same booking, always, and book the cheaper seats first since those are the ones about to disappear. Then sort out seating straight away, because on a split booking the airline has no reason to put you side by side.
It takes two minutes. Do it on every booking.
The boring part that works
Set a Fare Alert, Then Wait for the Drop
We don’t try to guess the perfect week to book. We set an alert on the route and let the price come to us.
We use I Want That Flight for this, a free, Australian-owned comparison site that emails you when fares drop on a route you are watching. It is also the easiest way to catch a Jetstar sale on the Brisbane routes before the cheap seats go.
When Jomana is doing the actual hunting, Skyscanner is her go-to. The alert tells us a route has dropped, and Skyscanner is where she goes to dig into the dates.
Booking.com sells flights as well as hotels, so check the same dates there before you book, particularly if you need somewhere to stay at the other end. Seeing the flight and the room side by side makes the true cost of the trip much easier to judge.
If your dates can move even a day or two, check the days either side before you commit. Once school holidays are involved, set the alert earlier, because peak dates fill first and the cheap buckets go with them.
The price before the price
Work Out the True Cost Before You Call It Cheap
A fare is not cheap until you have added what a family actually needs: bags, seat selection so you sit together, a meal on anything longer than a short hop, and getting to and from the airport at both ends.
The baby kit is where Jetstar quietly wins. On our flights the pram, car seat, portable cot and highchair could all be checked for free on top of the normal baggage allowance, policies change so check before you pack, but when that holds it is your whole baby kit for nothing, and it closes a lot of the gap with a full-service fare.
Take your own car seat if you can. We bought one at Target in Honolulu that folds down small enough to fit in our luggage, and we still travel with it now, hiring one at the other end adds up quickly.
The airport transfer belongs in the sum too. In Cairns we skipped the hire car and took an Uber from the airport, which only works because everything there sits on a flat, walkable footpath. In Tasmania a hire car was not optional, so it went straight into the cost of the trip.
The one we keep booking
Jetstar Starter Plus: The Fare We Keep Booking
For domestic flights it is Jetstar, and it is Starter Plus every time.
The fare included a $15 meal from the onboard menu when we last booked it. That sounds like nothing, but with a toddler, choosing the meal, waiting for it to arrive and then eating it takes up a real chunk of a two-hour flight, the sitting-still part, which is the hard part.
Our Tasmania trip started with a 3:30am alarm and a daughter who had no interest in being awake. The onboard breakfast on that Jetstar flight was genuinely good, and it carried all three of us through to Hobart.
We also use Club Jetstar for the member-only fares. The annual fee pays for itself quickly when you are booking three seats at a time.
It is not the fanciest way to fly, though for a short domestic hop with a small child we have never found a reason to pay more. Long-haul is different. Our Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu was 9 hours, and an empty seat next to us made more difference than anything we packed.
The real talk
What We’d Do Differently Next Time
Price the overnight stop when you join two tickets. There is no direct flight from Brisbane to Honolulu, we checked, and we would have taken it in a heartbeat. So for Hawaii we booked Brisbane to Sydney with Virgin and Sydney to Honolulu with Hawaiian Airlines as separate tickets. Our flight home arrived back into Sydney late, so we booked a night at Travelodge Sydney Airport for $244.04 AUD before the short flight to Brisbane. We never priced a single through-ticket from Brisbane, so we can’t say whether it would have worked out cheaper, but next time the hotel goes into the comparison from the start. If your route lands late, check airport hotels on Booking.com while you are still comparing flights, so the cost of the extra night is in front of you before you book.
Ask what happens to the pram before you leave the counter. On one flight Murray found out ten minutes before boarding that the pram had to go to oversized baggage, before security, not to the gate. He ran it back down, checked it, came back through security and made the flight with almost nothing to spare, with a very unimpressed Jomana waiting at the gate. Now we ask every time, and the answer really does change from airport to airport.
Budget for jet lag on the way home. Our daughter had never flown longer than three hours before Hawaii. Nobody warns you about the other end, jet lag took about a week to fully shake off once we were back in Brisbane.
The verdict
Is It Worth Hunting for Cheap Family Flights?
Completely, as long as you count the whole cost and not just the fare. Our honest take is: search one seat first, set an alert and let the price come to you, and add up the bags, the seats and anything at the other end before you decide a flight is cheap.
That is most of it. The money you save on the flight is the money you get to spend once you land.
Cheap Family Flights: FAQs
Is it cheaper to book family flights separately?
Sometimes. If the price per seat jumps when you search for three, splitting into two bookings can save money. Keep your child on the same booking as at least one parent, and sort out seating straight after.
What is a fare bucket?
A batch of seats sold at one price. When the cheapest batch runs short, the whole booking can be priced at the next level up, which is why searching for one seat first is worth doing.
Which airline is cheapest for families flying domestically in Australia?
For us, Jetstar. We book Starter Plus, use Club Jetstar member fares, and check the pram and car seat for free, though policies change, so confirm before you book.
Do airlines seat children with their parents for free?
Not always. It varies by airline, so check the family seating policy before you pay for seat selection, and on a split booking assume you will need to sort it yourself.
How do I know when family flights get cheaper?
Set a fare alert. I Want That Flight is free and emails you when the price drops on a route you are watching.
Is there a direct flight from Brisbane to Honolulu?
No. When we went, the only way was to connect, so we flew Brisbane to Sydney with Virgin and Sydney to Honolulu with Hawaiian Airlines. Routes change, so check the airlines before you plan around it.
Is a long-haul flight with a toddler manageable?
Yes, with some help. Our daughter had never flown longer than three hours before our 9-hour Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu. An empty seat beside us made a real difference, and jet lag took about a week to shake off at home.
Keep exploring
- The best family-friendly airlines in Australia, what we fly and why.
- Our 15-day Hawaii holiday with a toddler, every fare and booking included.
- Tasmania with kids: our 17-day itinerary, the trip that started with that 3:30am alarm.
- Things to do in Cairns city with kids, a week on foot with no hire car.
