$1290 Australia to Los Angeles on Qantas on the world's safest airline. Direct flights available
Flight dates:
Example Prices: Leaving Melbourne $1290, Sydney $1290, Brisbane $1290, Adelaide $1590, Perth $1740.
This deal is the cheapest price I've seen for the summer period, and the flights are direct. The other posts with fares <$1000 don't cover July-Aug and/or have layovers between 2-11 hours in many cases. For example, AirNZ has flights from $844 for MEL-LAX, according to https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/178331 but they're not available for the summer period. Choosing random dates (16/07 - 07/08), Qantas at $1290 is cheaper than AirNZ at $1444.
The direct route yes…is a positive. I just found some 1137 Air New Zealand flights for mid June mid July mid Aug and mid September, and heres the Air NZ embellishments:
2015
Awards:
Airline of the Year
AirlineRatings.com
2014
Awards:
New Zealand Company of the Year
Deloitte Top 200 Awards
Airline of the Year
AirlineRatings.com
Best Premium Economy Class
AirlineRatings.com
Best Premium Economy Class
World Airline Awards
Best Premium Economy Class Seats
World Airline Awards
Virgin doing those dates for $1170 according to Kayak. So how is this a bargain?
edit: ah it's fine, Qantas are direct and you'd be on an A380
Its a mini bargain for Qantas! I must say the QF A380 in Y to LAX is a smooth ride. But AirNZ 777 and Virgin 777 are also nice rides for the long trip in Y. A bargain is subjective. Some may value a direct route for the $1290 price. Whereas I paid less than $800 to LAX travelling in 2 weeks time, but that includes lengthy stopovers in Auckland both ways. To me its still a bargain.
@MelbBargainChaser77:
Yeah, flight bargains are very subjective. Red eye flights will be the cheapest, but if another leaves at 9am for only $30-$50 more, it would be the better buy for some people
@Spackbace: Pretty much all flights to the USA are red eyes, so the time you leave is of little concern.
I've always found Qantas in-flight experience better than Virgin's. Good deal.
As others have mentioned, trying to save yourself a few hundred dollars on a flight that has stop overs is not worth it. Especially when it's a long flight like this. Give me direct any day.
That being said this price via Qantas to LA pops up all the time and is quite standard.
We have 6 in my family. So a few hundred dollars x 6 winds up being a couple of grand. That's quite a few eneloops!!!
Highly subjective though - a few hundred dollars extra in my pocket for the inconvenience of one stop over? You could do a lot of things with the extra cash (like put it towards your holiday!)
don't get confused between direct & nonstop.
Direct means same aircraft, so not waiting for connecting aircraft to arrive.
Direct DOESN'T means nonstop.
Some Air NZ flights SYD/LAX are direct (via AKL). Same goes with Fiji Airways. They have daily direct SYD/LAX/SYD most of year, but all flights via NAN.
At peak season at Xmas for departures from around middle of Dec to around 10 Jan, huge variation in fares from around $1699 specials to well over $2500. Leave it until last minute & you'll be lucky to find anything under $3000.
Often a travel agent can find a cheaper fare than anything online, because an agent knows what to look for.
Eg. flying nonstop or direct might be $2500/adult, but having a stopover en route in one direction for night or 2, might be well under $2000/adult for around same dates. That $500 or so saving, can pay for very good accom etc. on the stopover.
Lastly, many fares can never be found online.
eg. 2 types that we're away of
1) is what's called nett fares, only available thru agents, where an agent gets given a fare at a cost price & they can add whatever they want. As it's not a "published" fare, doesn't appear on online websites
2) airfares with one airline going over & different one coming home. Have never seen most of the fares we sell to LAX online, as online search engines can't handle it.
Pippenn2k there's no such thing as standard fares. What you are referring to are sale fares. Increasingly airlines have short duration sales in low season, never high season. Often it means only a few seats at that price.
Business people flying economy at last minute regular pay $3000+ in low season(this is how airlines making money).
We've seen costing spreadsheets that imply that with most airlines(esp HCC's), fares under $1500 return SYD/LAX/SYD are loss leaders. If they sold every seat at these fares they would go broke very very fast.
HCC's - high cost airlines like Qantas, Delta, United & now even Virgin. Air NZ have slightly lower costs.
The only time we've seen return peak Xmas season fares to LAX from OZ under $1000 was at start of GFC end of 2007, when 2 things occurred
i) many people cancelled their trips. Back then, you could book a whole ski holiday for Dec-Jan period & only pay $200 deposit per person in Jan to Oct period & then pay balance 2 months prior to departure. Many people just walked away from their deposit & airlines left with 1,000 of unsold seats
ii) both Virgin & Delta started flying SYD/LAX/SYD
So demand fell thru floor & supply went thru the roof & thus $999 type fares.
Thanks, this has the dates i need and its also direct!
Flew with Virgin direct in October returning in November in 2012 for less than $1000.
I've seen deals to Canada and San Fran for around $800/900 over the past few months.
Do appreciate the post OP. Hopefully some people make use of it. My deal is more with Qantas. Their "sale fares" are 30%+ more than Virgin etc.
94 years old, no jet fatalities and developed most safety standards and regulations for other airlines to follow. I'll fly Qantas any day.
History is nice. But you probably want to look at the recent near misses.
Near misses happen a lot more than you think, the Aus media just likes to sensationalise Qantas incidents
Near hits as I call them ( cause a miss is a miss) happens every day in aviation. Yes there was QF32 engine explosion, not Qantas fault and the crew handled the situation like experts that they are. About two more serious incidents also handled extremely well. It's like doctors and surgeons, they are there when it hits the fan but they quality of the crew and equipment counts.
@zelda707: Especially SMH. Pretty much don't read anything SMH says about Qantas. They are so bad, whenever any aviation incident happens in Australia they stick a Qantas tail up as a thumbnail!
Someone's never watched Rain Man
Good enough for Rainman, good enough for me.
good for people going to la in july, none of the prev sales have been an early july date
sshh nrZ
WTF SULMAR HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
BA unite!
If only it wasn't so damn far away and such a long flight! Can't stand long haul flights. Did MEL -> NY 2 years ago with the wife, with a 1 hour stopover in LAX. Wow.. Talk about feeling buggered after!
Good deal though OP, and tempting.. Just to go back to SF/LA again and see more of California.
One thing for certain is I am missing our dollar buying US$1.06.
That was my best trip to the US ever - might be telling the grandkids about that one.
That was a great time to go visit the US. I remember my wife picking up a pair of shoes for about $100 and she asked my how much it worked out in Aussie dollars and I told her "works out to be around $50 with our strong Aussie dollar". I did definitely live to regret saying that but we had good fun anyhoo.
Sydney - Dubai return from $2,591. Sydney - London (via Dubai) return from $1,755. An interesting recent article on "hidden-city ticketing": www.newyorker.com/business/currency/united-skiplagged-proble…
if you're going to "not show up" for the second leg of the trip, at least make sure you're booked on one way tickets. If you were to say leave sydney to dubai and not show up for dubai london, your return leg is likely to be cancelled too
I just booked Air NZ Melb-San Francisco (stopping only in Auckland) in April/May for $1044 through Zuji. Still similar fare available, into June as well, sale ends today.
Useful to me as i have about 300k qantas points and gold status. No status at all with NZ so paying 150 more per ticket doesn't bother me as i'll have lounge access and an outside chance to use my points for upgrades
well lah dee dah
ok so i posted a new comment rather than replying to the thread where people were calling no deal. just trying to explain how this could be a deal to someone and how someone would be willing to pay a bit more than air nz's current offers
Ummm, youll have ZERO chance of an upgrade. The Red e deal Sale fares to USA are ticketed in an non upgradable fare bucket. No amount of points you hold or gold status will allow these tickets a chance for a points upgrade. Upgrades on Sale fares are only available to be requested on Qantas domestic- I learned this the hard way!!
the last 2 times i've been to the USA on similar sale fares i've ended up with an email before departure saying that they are offering the chance to upgrade these fares. I know its a long shot (and the previous trips were september/october so this may have something to do with it) but i'm going to see what i can do anyway.
Virgin is a better deal for ppl wanting to travel in summer school holidays. their fare is up to 10/12. many private schools are break up 1 to 2 weeks early and only one more week for public schools. usually prak starts at 4/12 so its a really cheap deal for peak.
considering bris to ny for $1500 rtn.. so cheap at xmas. disappointed in qantas, could have at least matched or beaten virgin. i prefer the flying experience with qantas.
i prefer the flying experience with qantas.
Hence why they probably don't feel the need to price match cheaper airlines
yes but most families who want to go skiing want to depart late Dec, do LAX or NYC or both before skiing then ski for a week or 3 in January.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-27/qantas-lowers-fuel-sur…
finally starting to do something about fuel surcharges.
it's the total fare that counts not the breakup. The breakup only has significance to travel agents, as they are paid commission on fare not taxes/charges.
I am hoping that once the surcharge has gone, they will lower overall fares.
think you are dreaming if you think there's going to be any major drop in fares.
Both Virgin & Qantas have been bleeding cash big time.
All this fuss about surcharges won't change anything.
Big headlines when Virgin dropped their surcharges to LAX by $40.
$40 is nothing.
At Xmas anything under $2000 is fantastic.
@travelwiz: you a right. There won't be a major drop in fares. I was hoping that I could grab something about $1000 or $1100 for a Oct or Nov flight. Maybe I am too optimistic.
what about Xmas school holidays ?
Flights loaded on Qantas website til 21 January 2016 now.
MORE ON SALE FARES
One domestic airline was found to have maximum of 2 seats per flight at sale fare. Many flights at popular times had zero on sale.
This is fair enough.
Days like Tuesday are generally quite & 5am & 9pm flights are usually hard to sell excluding the current 5am departures out of BNE to SYD & MEL.
Due to daylight saving in NSW & VIC, a 5am out of BNE doesn't arrive in SYD time 7.35am & MEL 8.20am.
Qld is the only state currently on AEST.
$1290 ex Melb for travel between:
1st Feb - 20 Mar
13 Apr - 8 Jun
7 Jul - 4 Sep
4 Oct - 7 Dec