First of all, you will need to know which cities you like to visit in China.
For instance, the most likely cities you will be visiting in China for the first time: Beijing and Xi'an.
Beijing is famed for the Great Wall, Summer Palace and the Forbidden City and Xi'an has been famous for the Army of Terracotta Warriors and Horses as well as the starting point of the Silk Road.
  The question is how would this affect your decision when buying a flight ticket? OK, the secret is that the airline you are about choosing will greatly affect on the overall cost of your holiday.
Option 1: If you depart from London, you have many choices.
However, you may consider fly with Air China (direct flight).
 Normally, direct flight is more expensive than indirect flight as many of us notice this factor.
However, it is worth choosing Air China if you just like to fly directly to China without exchanging your flight at another airport.
In fact, it is not always expensive in my case.
Remember you are visiting China for Beijing and Xi'an.
A tip for you is that DO NOT book your flight to Beijing, instead, book it to Xi'an, reason for this is that the promotional offer from Air China for flying to Xi'an is often available.
It works out as following: London-Beijing-Xi'an-Beijing-London.
Therefore, you find that Xi'an as your final destination shown on your flight schedule.
By doing so, you saved your money for purchase the flight ticket from Beijing to Xi'an in China; solely buying the flight ticket Beijing-Xi'an in China can be quite expensive.
To do this correctly, you need to inform the airline that you will make a stopover at Beijing for a few days before flying to Xi'an.
(the duration will be up to how many days you are visiting Beijing) It is allowed of doing so in many cases.
Option 2: KLM/China Southern Airlines If you depart from other major airport from the UK, you may consider KLM via Amsterdam, an indirect flight and quite often has promotional offer to China.
Many airlines are similar to KLM as described above.
However, KLM is affiliated with China Southern Airlines.
Therefore, they have a marketing agreement in place, which is called code share (find out more at Wikipedia.
) initially, it means that flights from both airlines that fly the same route - This provides an apparent increase in the frequency of service on the route by one airline.
" China Southern Airlines operating the flights Beijing-Xi'an in China as well, therefore, you can book your flights to China via Amsterdam, and then you will need to exchange your flight at Amsterdam.
 Again, you need to book your flight to Xi'an instead of Beijing; you might have to pay for a little extra for this.
However, it works out cheaper than buying a flight ticket from Beijing to Xi'an in China.
As China Southern Airlines have their own flights from Beijing to Xi'an.
When doing this you need to inform the airlines (KLM) that you will need to make stopover at Beijing for a few days before departing for Xi'an.
The duration will be up to how many days you are going to stay in Beijing for your visit.
 Option 3: Other Asian Airlines.
Many Asian airlines have their flights from their own country to China.
Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Koreanair, JAL, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines...
therefore, you may consider flying with any one of them, and make a stopover at their country.
For example, Thai Airways has its own flights from Bangkok to Beijing.
Thus, you can make a stopover at Bangkok if you also like to visit Bangkok as an add-on destination for your holiday.
It is worth trying that way if you are not satisfied by just visiting China for your holiday.
Then again you may do the same if you like to visit Japan, then choose JAL (Japanese Airlines), or Kuala Lumpur and choose Malaysia Airlines.
 The only thing you need to bear in mind is that you need to book your flight to China as your final destination on those airlines.
Inform the airlines how many days you are going to stay at their country before exchanging your flight to Beijing.