Flight deal of the week: UK to Tokyo from £248

Japan's cherry blossom (seen here in Tokyo in 2017) is within reach for £248 (AFP/Getty Images)

Every week, Jack Sheldon from Jack’s Flight Club selects a flight deal from the UK for Independent readers that you can’t afford to miss. This week: Japan over Easter next year from £258.

How about a return trip to Tokyo for £258? It sounds unreal, but Aeroflot is offering just that if you're savvy enough to find this less-than-obvious route. These fares are for late Spring 2018, an amazing time to visit Japan, and also include some options over the Easter half-term school holidays when fares are often at their highest. A return fare from London will typically run you around three times this price, but if you look for an open-jaw flight (details below), you can grab a ticket to Japan for less than you would often pay for a flight to Europe.

How to book

This one is an “open-jaw” flight, which, in flight-speak, is a flight that departs from one airport and returns to another. In this case, flights depart from Paris (CDG), but return to Heathrow, so you'll have to add in a one-way Eurostar journey or a budget flight to Paris in order to take advantage. With this deal being many months away, you can book tickets across the Channel for very little.

The best way to find these flights is to head to google.co.uk/flights and select the 'Multi-City' search option. Then mark Paris (CDG) as the departure airport, Tokyo (NRT) as the destination, and London (LHR) as the return airport. The cheapest dates to fly are between early May and mid-June, so a two-week itinerary from 12-28 May would give you the absolute lowest fare of £258. Overall, I find that Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday departure dates and Monday or Saturday return dates turn out the lowest fares.

If you're limited to school holiday travel, try departing 3 April and returning 14 April, catching the celebrated cherry blossom festival.

When to fly

Mid-May to early June offer the best fares, but there are also plenty of options from January through April for only slightly more, including options over the Easter holidays for only £342.

When to book

These fares should last three or four days

Pro tips

While this flight does have a quick stop in Moscow, no visa is required if you are not planning to leave the airport. And obviously, if you arrive in Paris a day or two early, it's like snagging two holidays for the price of a single ticket.

Also, don't be put off by the fact that it's Aeroflot. It may have a bad name from the Soviet era, but Russia's national carrier is actually a really good airline now, and they use the same Boeing and Airbus planes BA does.