In Reply to: Sydney to Bali posted by Sukie on Saturday, 25. June 2005 at 09:04 Bali Time:
KL is the main hub for Air Asia, and flights to Bali through them are heaps cheaper than from Singapore. Everything in Malaysia is heaps cheaper than in Singapore.
Until recently, it wouldn't have mattered much, coz they had a flight from Johor Baru (a short drive over the border from Singapore) to Jakarta. If you need to go via Singapore, the cheapest way to Bali would be to fly from JB to KL, then get an Airasia flight to Bali. Definitely cheaper than flying return from Sydney. Unless you get a cheaper flight from Toronto direct to Sydney.
Return flights from Sydney start at around AU$800 if you can get a cheap package (about six hours flying time). Via Airasia through KL, it depends how early you book and what specials they have, but it should be well under AU$200. (Just book it yourself online. If your agent does it, it will probably cost heaps more.) Airasia.com (Flying time is about 20 mins JB-KL, and about 3 hours KL-Bali.)
If you have the time, Malaysia is well worth seeing, too. If I were you, I'd knock a few weeks off the Australia visit and spend it zipping around Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and a few more interesting places. But then I'm biased coz I live in Australia.
Actually, I just did a quick check on airasia.com... In September (I picked a random date) including taxes it cost RM184 (around AU$60) to fly from KL-Bali one way. And it's about AU15 from JB-KL. So the total cost JB-KL-Bali-KL-JB would be around AU$150, plus bus/taxi to Singapore (Bus -- less than $3 one way, Taxi -- around $20). It's a bit of messing around, but very cheap. Even cheaper and less messy if you can wangle a stopover in KL instead of Singapore. Good luck.