Going to the World Cup 2010...

[Dee]

... and want to know a couple of things:

How far in advance can we book the flights and can anyone recommend any good websites/companies to do this?

Where could I buy tickets for the games?

Anything else I need to know?

I know its a bit in advance, but hey, I gotta know these things ;)

[Mark]

I'd be starting to think about this about 18 months in advance, and planning seriously about a year in advance. Obviously keep an eye on the FIFA website for details of when the tickets are likely to become available, but the above are typically fairly safe bets.

SportsWorld (http://www.sportsworld-group.com/swg/sportsworld/index.html) are a specialist travel company dealing with sporting events around the world, and offer tickets, travel, and accommodation. Beware that they are expensive, particularly for flights and accommodation as they use 'official' companies. You can usually beat their prices significantly by organising yourself, but run the risk of availability issues because the big operators (like SportsWorld) and sponsors have snapped up the best hotels.

Hope this helps. I went through all this with M2002 Commonwealth Games, and I'm sure I'll go through it all again with 2012 Olympics.

[Dee]

Ill take a look at that, thanks Mark :)

Accommodation isnt a concern as we'll be staying with friends, who can hopefully wangle us some tickets too ;)

[Will]

Is this football? If so... why?! :p Seriously though, I'd love to go to SA. Some airlines allow you to book 2 years in advance, but I'd say closer to 18 months would be better. It's a gamble of get in early or lastminute it... I'm a last minute person myself - I'm not a planner :embarassed: The best thing to do is hunt around for deals on excite, opodo, travelocity, and sometimes directly with the airline i.e. virgin etc... Try and avoid BA if you can though... It might be worth going to travel agencies - there are some good ones in London village but whether or not they exist oop north I don't know - they got us a deal of under 400 quid with virgin to Cuba which was pretty cool. There are no golden rule really - a lot of it is down to luck and finding the deals.