Travel from SYD to LAX (including layover in LAX before DAL/DFW and return via LAX to SYD) for single female traveller

Ljason andrade on 16/02/2017 - 22:28

G'day,

My missus needs to make a trip next month for family reasons (sick relative) to the US but is also looking at a layover in LAX for a day to recover from the travel and because she'll then likely be driving that same day from Dallas onto Oklahoma. I unfortunately can't make the trip with her to help as I need to stay home to look after dogs and cats and chickens (and work)

I'm looking for any advice around trying to secure the best deal for travel in late march/early april, returning in mid april (a trip of around 2 weeks) or even advice around the best dates/days to travel as I can't easily find any tools that show me this sort of information.

The preference is for her to travel on VA or something VA affiliated as she has a bit of status left and of course to try to get a reasonable deal.

VA's website sadly doesn't allow you to to book multi city travel (where the middle leg is between two points in North America - wtf?).

Getting a price even just to do SYD-DFW/DAL-SYD (via LAX but no stopover) still comes up as almost $2K with VA even with the OzBargain discount codes posted. I could take 5% off that with an entertainment book voucher purchase but that only drops it by $100.

Sites like IWTF seem to do a bit better ($1700ish for ones with a minimum of stops)

So some of my questions:

  • Is it worth booking the whole thing on Delta which seems to offer a better price than VA by $500 or so ?
  • Is it still better to try to book this through a travel agent - are they likely to be able to get a better deal ? It's not a very complex itinerary
  • We were planning to either buy travel insurance or just put it on our gold card which offers complimentary travel insurance (but of course you then have a CC fee)

We're trying to keep the costs down as there's every chance she may need to fly back again in the next month or two if things don't get better and she's retired.

Thanks!

Travel

Comments

  • kiribatian on 17/02/2017 - 00:27
    +2

    Is there any reason you want to return via DAL and not DFW?

    I have just searched arriving in and leaving DFW below. Let me know if you actually need to return via DAL or the dates do not suit. Dates are 27 March-10 April.
    Isn't it better to fly the 17 hours direct to DFW or does she really want the break in LAX?

    Have to pay in USD so use your Citibank/28 Degrees card.

    Cheapest: Qantas $1091 SYD-DFW return non-stop

    Virgin $1122. SYD-DFW return via LAX. 24 hour layover on the way there and 5 hours on the way back

    Virgin $1159 with 6 hour layover in LAX on way there instead

    • RockyRaccoon on 17/02/2017 - 04:29
      +1

      Another thought with this is that she can also rest in a Dallas hotel before driving to Oklahoma, and the advantage is that she can drive at the time which suits her. Eg she feels rested after 8 hours and can drive on. Vs LAX stop over where she has to drag bags to hotel, come back the next day, book on plane again etc etc.

      The direct flight is only an extra 3 hours vs the time lost in customs at LAX, and reloading on another flight to Dallas, by the time she is ready to load again, she would be in Dallas with the direct flight. To me far better than the points lost on her virgin FF

      With last minute travel, dont get stuck on which airline, otherwise you will be paying for that loyalty. Keep in mind thats why they have these loyalty programs. Its for their benefit.

      Also if you do use Delta, just check the flight numbers as they may actually be Virgin planes codeshared by Delta, so you get delta price and virgin staff/plane to LAX.

      The mileage on a Dallas trip would get you points that on most airlines can at least be used for gift cards by joining that airlines FF program saving a hundred or so dollars (thats if you cant use the points for something else)

  • Shadowsfury on 17/02/2017 - 07:54

    (I don't know actual answer) but you'd think if Delta is codesharing with VA, that you could earn velocity points instead of Delta for that flight. Have done that with flying Singapore Airlines and pooling points/status credits to Virgin. Ditto flying United to USA and pooling points to Singapore Airlines.

    Also depending on level of status you might still get into the lounge - I did during my SQ flights utilising my Velocity Gold.

  • jason andrade on 17/02/2017 - 23:05

    Thanks for the advice to date. Only reason for mentioning DAL is that a number of airlines fly into DAL instead of DFW (and didn't want to rule it out as an option)

    Not really worried about the actual FF points but if possible would like to try to get status credits to see if we can retain her status (only reason really to specify VA or VA codeshare or VA partner).

    She wanted to:

    • Have a break in LAX on the way there as it means she can rest from the flight, catch up with a friend in LAX and then when she makes the trip from LAX to DAL/DFW she'll aim for a morning flight to get there around lunchtime where she has a ~3 hour drive to OK.
    • try to fly as directly as possible on the way back because at that point she just wants to get home (and have bags checked through etc)

    I'm surprised at how expensive VA has turned out to be directly (it isn't high season right?)

    • bazza1980 on 18/02/2017 - 07:17

      There are 3 airlines operating into DAL vs 30+ at DFW. Of those 3 only Southwest and Virgin America have direct service into LAX from DAL. If you want a seamless connection and status with VA, you can all but rule out Southwest, which leaves Virgin America, but they have a much smaller presence at DAL.

    • RockyRaccoon on 18/02/2017 - 07:49
      -1

      I'm surprised at how expensive VA has turned out to be directly (it isn't high season right?)

      Nothing to do with high season etc Its loads. If they have already filled their planes to the specified load, then the prices go up. The less seats available the higher the price, the more, the lower.

      Virgin and Delta have had some fairly aggressive prices lately so these will have probably been successful in filling the planes.

      Virgin are also quite aggressive with managing loads. Once got bumped on a family and friends fare LAX to SYD, so they could take freight (higher revenue). In the weirdness of flying I picked up a Cathay to Sydney via Hong Kong one way, for the only 10% more than the refund I got from my Virgin return ticket and the booking was made with only 6 hours before the flight. (Since Virgin bumped me and 10 others the next day didn't look promising)

  • jason andrade on 18/02/2017 - 08:42

    I've since also found the tool on skyscanner that allows you to look at specific dates (with pricing) - that I simply couldn't find earlier - as we can move her trip around to try to take advantage of better fares. That's made a pretty significant difference ($500ish or ~30%).

    I've also discovered one other limitation (feature?) that the online tools have compared to the direct airline booking systems (and a flaw in the other direction):

    • You can't change around different fare classes (or look at the differences) - can you do this later (I'm guessing not..) - e.g book in discount conomy and then make it fully flexible later by paying the difference?)
    • The airline system (and I'm speaking about VA's here) briefly shows you the prices for different dates and it then disappears and you can't see it. What the heck ? It would have been much more useful to see this and you can see it on domestic bookings with no issues - just long haul international won't show it ?
  • jason andrade on 20/02/2017 - 14:10

    So after hunting around, this is the summary of where we got to.

    There are a number of sites to consider using:
    - IWantThatFlight (iwantthatflight.com.au)
    - Kayak (kayak.com)
    - Priceline (princeline.com)

    and my favourite, skyscanner.com.au

    It's important to realise that not all of these will 'obviously' show you the range of days to book (i.e show you multiple fares on different days) without poking around the interface to show a list or chart of the best (cheapest) options.

    It's also important to realise that if you're booking a return ticket (or even one with one or more layovers) that the prices actually change as you 'book' each leg (e.g when I booked the departure leg, prices changed on the return leg, depending on which day). That's completely non obvious to me and I haven't figured out why that would happen. As such you have to play around a bit.

    In the end we ended up getting a fare for $1182 (approx) with all fees and charges directly via VA flying towards the end of March and returning early April. Another tip, when booking you'll notice that the prices momentarily show up for each day and then 'disappear'. To see the different prices when booking on VA's site, click on 'show all fare options' and suddenly you get to actually see the cheapest days. Why this isn't the default behaviour I don't understand..

    Missus was extremely happy to get the trip to Dallas and back for under $1200 (including all fees)

    It was nice to see that VA's CC surcharge is a lot less than it used to be (a total of $15 for a 4 leg return journey!) and they don't charge extra (compared to mastercard/visa) for amex either.

    That got us a trip for SYD-LAX-DAL-LAX-SYD.

    Sadly, premium economy was cost prohibitive but for an extra $131 each way you could have booked seats with a bit of extra legroom (what used to be the old premium economy cabin i assume) or an exit row. Missus decided it wasn't worth the extra $262..

    This trip should earn 110 status credits (40-15-15-40) - sadly not enough for her to keep her status but it may help me keep mine for another year with family pooling..

  • voteoften on 21/02/2017 - 04:27

    Have you considered RTW?

    • jason andrade on 23/02/2017 - 20:46

      Yes, and if it were me travelling I'd do it but missus wants to have as little travel as possible on the return leg.

  • Kiwi131313 on 28/02/2017 - 14:31

    A few things that I can offer:

    Normally flights from SYD to LA arrive in the early morning (6-8am). The Travelodge LAX seems to have the best rate around for day rooms from 9am - 8pm at $75 USD - see this link for more info including breakfast and free shuttle. The other option would be to try to find an AirBnB, but just remember you would probably have to book 2 days, with check in being the day before she arrived.

    Try calling Virgin Aus to see what they can do for you, you can't book some partner airlines or multi city stops online, but they can sort this out if you call their booking center.

    I just found this website - FlightFox. They might be a better option than booking through a travel agent. Admittedly I haven't used them (yet), but you put in your details about the trip, plus the best price that you've been able to find, and they try to find a better price for you. They charge a fee, as long as new price + their fee is equal to or less than your original price you found. And I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that you can also tell them how many FF points you have and they can factor that in.

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