Am I crazy? I just price beat Qantas to fly on Jetstar!

[travelislife]

I just used Jetstar's price beat guarantee to fly on Jetstar instead of Qantas, before you say "Your mad!" hear me out!

Flight is a one way for 2 passengers SYD-MEL on a Sunday night. List prices were: Qantas flight $129, Jetstar flight $179, flights within 5 minutes of each other.

So price beating gives me a price of $116.10 on Jetstar, which in itself is nothing and not worth it, may as well fly Qantas. But I had a $50 Jetstar voucher so my total cost of the two flights comes down. Because I am matching Qantas the Jetstar fare also includes baggage, so the total cost difference was as follows for 2 people:

Qantas: $258
Jetstar: $182.20

So it is only a 30% saving, but the JQ voucher I had was about to expire and it is only a 1hr flight.

I have access to the QC through Gold QFF so all good. Also in the case that something goes pear shaped with the Jetstar flight (highly likely!) there are enough lightly loaded QF flights at that time to be offloaded on to.

The call centre obviously doesn't match Qantas very often because the lady actually said to me, why don't you just book Qantas because it is cheaper!

So I guess the question is, would anyone else have done the same or just booked the Qantas flights? Note that if I didn't have the $50 Jetstar credit I would not have done the price beat and would have just booked Qantas.

 

[samh004]

Bigger issue for me would be that you can't add a Plus bundle onto a price match without paying the change fee (and even then, not sure if it's possible). But if you don't need the points/SC, it's a decent saving.

 

[simongr]

I think for $80 I would have gone with QF.

Better QP on the way out (note I would be accessing the J lounge as well) and you don't have to go to the carp terminal in MEL.

 

[serfty]

Fascinating, sometimes things just line up.

I think for $80 I would have gone with QF.

Better QP on the way out (note I would be accessing the J lounge as well) and you don't have to go to the carp terminal in MEL.

Understand the first (need to leave the J lounge 15 minutes earlier), but not the second. All JQd flights arrive into T1 at MEL.

 

[travelislife]

The thing with Jetstar is they don't actually want to try and fix a problem so they just keep throwing credit vouchers at people, I have got a few over time just by putting complaints in, this one was with regard to how they don't allow duty free purchases in DPS but other airlines do.

Also interesting is the difference in list prices between QF and JQ for flights departing within 5 minutes of each other. Jetstars marketing must have worked so well that people don't even bother checking out the competition and just book Jetstar! Otherwise they wouldn't be charging that much or no one would pay it.

 

[eastwest101]

Definition of PYRRHIC

: achieved at excessive cost <a Pyrrhic victory>; also : costly to the point of negating or outweighing expected benefits <a great but Pyrrhic act of ingenuity>



(although in your case with an expiring JQ credit voucher I can understand your motivation for the price beat there)

 

[oz_mark]

In the absence of the jetstar voucher I would have just booked qantas.

However, with the voucher and no need for sc or points, I would have leant toward jetstar as well.

 

[Awesom Andy]

The thing with Jetstar is they don't actually want to try and fix a problem so they just keep throwing credit vouchers at people, I have got a few over time just by putting complaints in, this one was with regard to how they don't allow duty free purchases in DPS but other airlines do.

Given that I use 3K quite a bit, it looks like I might have found a way to save on my travel costs.

 

[sjd]

You are crazy. I'm sorry what was the question?

 

[freepyjamas]

Yeah, you're mad.