Pillpusher
Contributor
Hi. I'm headed out to Raja Ampat in Oct.
I'm flying from San Francisco to Jakarta somewhere in the ballpark of $550-700 round trip. Book your Jakarta to sorong (or Bali to Sorong, wherever you are flying to) separately with a local carrier. My flight from Jakarta to Sorong one way in Business class was $190.
Check out Nusatrip.com. Reputable site for Indo flights. I usually book through the carrier directly (Garuda, Sriwijaya) but some smaller ones (Batik Air) don't take foreign credit cards on their website but Nusatrip does. The other one is Tiket.com.
Let me know if you have any specific questions. We did this the first time we went to Indonesia (flew into bali from San Francisco then did local ticket from Bali to Labuan Bajo for Komodo.)
You beat me. Mine was $193 for business class...lol (Nusatrip as well). Also, my business class from Manado to Jakarta (I'm hitting Lembeh after the liveaboard trip) was only $152. And I wouldn't be afraid of Batik. They are also a full service airline (under the Lion Air umbrella). Besides, business class at half the price of Garuda's economy for a four hour flight is a steal if you ask me. Batik also allows a free extra bag for dive gear, so no worries there.
I agree with outofoffice on trying Liveaboard.com. Also try Diviac, as they seem to show more availability. Even if you're looking to go as soon as this October, there are still quite a few options available.
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