Bizarre: return flights to Australia under €600

Australia has been on my bucket list for so long; I am now really ready to just book a ticket there. The reason I haven't done that until now is because of the costs. Australia itself is expensive, but your ticket there is also already hugely pricey. Every time I tried to make a cost estimate, I calculated about €1500 for just the ticket, but apparently you can sometimes get lucky.

Via SkyScanner now lets you buy round-trip tickets to Melbourne for less than €600; if you leave on March 11 and return on March 26, it will cost you €577. Sorry, but that's really an incredibly good deal, right? If you prefer to fly to Sydney, that’s also possible: a round trip will then cost €719 (departure on March 16 and return flight on March 31).

I almost feel like this is some kind of glitch from the airline, because if you fly back a day later, you're already looking at about €1000 per round trip. The flight is operated by Xiamen Air, a Chinese airline, with a layover in Xiamen. During the return trip, that layover is quite long, so you can also take a little time to explore the city if you want. It's a huge city with 5.2 million inhabitants, so there’s plenty to do, you would say.

One tip is: be quick, because ticket prices are getting higher and higher. The round trip to Sydney was initially €600 and has now already increased. I’ll sleep on it for a night, and then I might just book. Australia, here I come.