One way Eur - Oz in J

[Kaiser]

Hey guys and gals,


Looking to pay my way back to Australia from Europe in Late April 2016. Best I have found so far is CX fares from OSL-LHR-HKG-BNE for $2445pp. Is this a good deal or should I wait a bit for more early bird fares to become available? The other alternative was CX ARN-AMS-HKG-SIN in J then EK SIN-BNE in Y for total $2000pp.

Lock one of these in now or hold off for a bit?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hey guys and gals,


Looking to pay my way back to Australia from Europe in Late April 2016. Best I have found so far is CX fares from OSL-LHR-HKG-BNE for $2445pp. Is this a good deal or should I wait a bit for more early bird fares to become available? The other alternative was CX ARN-AMS-HKG-SIN in J then EK SIN-BNE in Y for total $2000pp.

Lock one of these in now or hold off for a bit?

For business class those are excellent fares. There are lots of specials... but they vary by departure point and come and go pretty quickly. At the current time the Scandinavian countries seem to be enjoying a bit of a fare war. This probably won't be sustained, and may not last long (could end any time).

if you have found something you're happy with, i'd probably lock it in. (check you fares against googleflights to make sure you haven't overlooked anything).

 

[Nizar]

Hey guys and gals,


Looking to pay my way back to Australia from Europe in Late April 2016. Best I have found so far is CX fares from OSL-LHR-HKG-BNE for $2445pp. Is this a good deal or should I wait a bit for more early bird fares to become available? The other alternative was CX ARN-AMS-HKG-SIN in J then EK SIN-BNE in Y for total $2000pp.

Lock one of these in now or hold off for a bit?

The CX fare looks pretty good to me.

The other alternative is using AA miles using their current promo.
CDG usually has good availability on their best A380 product.
So you can perhaps do something like CDG-DOH-MEL then get a connecting QF J flight to BNE.
Price should come to around A$2200 inclusive of all taxes so you're not getting a whole lot of value by doing it this way and you may not get the dates you want, etc.

I would stick to the CX fare you have. That's a tough one to beat. Especially with the Aussie dollar where it's currently at.

QR revenue fares ex Scandanavia are usually quite good but not as good as that CX fare you found. I can see $2500 to SIN but again not as good as the CX fare you have found.

I would book what you have already found. I don't think it will get any better than that.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Looking to pay my way back to Australia from Europe in Late April 2016. Best I have found so far is CX fares from OSL-LHR-HKG-BNE for $2445pp.

Crikey that looks great value to me - I'd be all over that like a cheap suit if I was you. Where did you find that fare may I ask?

 

[RooFlyer]

Again, that's a fare I can admire. Finnair have some great prices, and you can avoid going to (expensive) LHR - ie OSL-HEL-SIN/HKG/BKK-BNE but even with their current sale (not applicable to April next year) the best price I can find is about A$3,200.

But check out the current Finnair sale, just in case I mis-handled it.

But with your CX fare, if you can avoid LHR or the UK in general you could probably save a few bucks more.

 

[Kaiser]

Thanks guys I may book the CX fare. I found it by using the Momondo search site -been researching for weeks just plugging in different combinations. Looks to be ticketed through helloworld. Can book directly through CX but it was a bit higher @ $2580 vs $2424 - although I don't know if you still get flexibility of date changes/refund if going through an OTA such as helloworld.

 

[Nizar]

Crikey that looks great value to me - I'd be all over that like a cheap suit if I was you. Where did you find that fare may I ask?

CX sometimes offer very cheap fares when ticketed through other airlines.
I once saw a CMB-MEL flight that had its longest component HKG-MEL on CX J.
The other legs were operated by some chinese airline (also J class).
The whole thing came to around A$1500.

 

[Kaiser]

Thanks Roo - yeah you can avoid LHR and go OSL > AMS > HKG > BNE for the same price. I don't think you cop the LHR tax if you are just transiting through? The OSL- AMS/LHR is on SAS/BA/KL metal then lie flat beds from AMS/LHR to BNE .
We will be travelling through Italy and Slovenia, but I found a cheap positioning flight to OSL for only $90 so it's looking like a good option.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Crikey that looks great value to me - I'd be all over that like a cheap suit if I was you. Where did you find that fare may I ask?

that's only one way! That's about right given the number of airlines competing ex Europe and historic fares.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks Roo - yeah you can avoid LHR and go OSL > AMS > HKG > BNE for the same price. I don't think you cop the LHR tax if you are just transiting through? The OSL- AMS/LHR is on SAS/BA/KL metal then lie flat beds from AMS/LHR to BNE .
We will be travelling through Italy and Slovenia, but I found a cheap positioning flight to OSL for only $90 so it's looking like a good option.

No tax if immediate connection/short transit in the UK.

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks Roo - yeah you can avoid LHR and go OSL > AMS > HKG > BNE for the same price. I don't think you cop the LHR tax if you are just transiting through? The OSL- AMS/LHR is on SAS/BA/KL metal then lie flat beds from AMS/LHR to BNE .
We will be travelling through Italy and Slovenia, but I found a cheap positioning flight to OSL for only $90 so it's looking like a good option.

No tax if immediate connection/short transit in the UK.

Oops. My mistake, sorry. I just have a general aversion to LHR so reflexively make stuff up, apparently.

 

[Kaiser]

Much prefer going through Schipol

 

[Kaiser]

The CX fare looks pretty good to me.

The other alternative is using AA miles using their current promo.
CDG usually has good availability on their best A380 product.
So you can perhaps do something like CDG-DOH-MEL then get a connecting QF J flight to BNE.
Price should come to around A$2200 inclusive of all taxes so you're not getting a whole lot of value by doing it this way and you may not get the dates you want, etc.

I would stick to the CX fare you have. That's a tough one to beat. Especially with the Aussie dollar where it's currently at.

QR revenue fares ex Scandanavia are usually quite good but not as good as that CX fare you found. I can see $2500 to SIN but again not as good as the CX fare you have found.

I would book what you have already found. I don't think it will get any better than that.

Is there a limit as to how many AAdvantage miles you can buy? I have zero so i'd need to buy 120,000 get get the 2 J award seats CDG-BNE on QF/AY. That works out at $1900pp excluding the taxes (not sure how much these are through AA?)

EDIT: Never mind - I can't find more than one AASaver seat on the flights back to Aus.

 

[kelvedon]

No tax if immediate connection/short transit in the UK.

do you know how short a short transit has to be to avoid UK departure tax?

 

[Kaiser]

So just thinking out loud here... With the current AAdvantage buy miles promo I could do: MUC-DOH-CMB on QR for 30,000 miles ($852) then CMB-SIN-BNE on UL/QF for $1191 = $2043pp. Is the $400 saving worthwhile?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So just thinking out loud here... With the current AAdvantage buy miles promo I could do: MUC-DOH-CMB on QR for 30,000 miles ($852) then CMB-SIN-BNE on UL/QF for $1191 = $2043pp. Is the $400 saving worthwhile?

Not sure of the math... 30k AA miles will cost USD791 (that's after the 15% discount and with the federal excise tax and AA processing charge). That comes to ~AUD1060. Then there will be ticket taxes on top of that (no fuel surcharges, but airport and government taxes).

By the time you add all those, plus the UL/QF combo (which is a cracking deal!), you're going to be up around the CX price anyway. And being on separate tickets, you'll need to build in time in Colombo (although not such an issue because you are flying business class so have flexibility).

QR/UL/QF will be more exotic and interesting, but CX will be straightforward, nice long sectors, plenty of sleep.

 

[Kaiser]

True, we're more interested in a comfy sleep on the way home. Going a bit off topic, but would a AA award from DOH-HKG-BNE price as a Middle east > Aus award (50,000 miles) or would they see it as two seperate award bookings?

Edit: Apparently it is allowed to transit via Asia Zone 2 when going from Middle East Zone to Australia. Sweet.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

True, we're more interested in a comfy sleep on the way home. Going a bit off topic, but would a AA award from DOH-HKG-BNE price as a Middle east > Aus award (50,000 miles) or would they see it as two seperate award bookings?

Middle east - but QR or QF/CX must have a published fare for the route allowing those combinations of carriers. I don't know if they do. I'm guessing CX probably would DOH-HKG-BNE. Dunno about QR/QF.

There are two things to watch out for with AA awards... routing restrictions (such as transiting additional zones on the way to another, or zones through which you can't make connections), or published fare requirements.

 

[Kaiser]

Cross posting my response just to let you know of the eventual outcome. Thanks very much all for the advice.

Going: J redemption via Velocity points converted to Krisflyer on SQ: SYD-SIN-ZUR $475 in YQ/taxes.
Returning: Positioning flight to DOH - Y class QR: MUC-DOH - QFF Points
AAdvantage J redemption on CX: DOH-HKG-BNE = $1285 (45,000 miles + taxes)

So a total of $1935p.p Return Australia to Europe in Business on SQ and CX (with a small 5 hr Y flight on QR).

I could have got this down even lower to about $1550 by using my Velocity points to go from BNE-IST on EY for only 110,000 Velocity and $85 taxes.

There were other AAdvantage options for the return leg such as QR/QF: DOH-PER-BNE or QF: DXB-MEL or EY: AUH - BNE.

- the sweet spot for these AAdvantage redemptions is the Middle East/India to Australia zone which is 45000 points for J. Note you are allowed to go via SE Asian hub (SIN,HKG,BKK etc)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Note you are allowed to go via SE Asian hub (SIN,HKG,BKK etc)

Yes - ME to South Pacific is allowed to transit in Asia 2. EY was however probably the pick of the bunch.

Are you quoting prices for the AA miles in USD?