Am I missing any tricks with this itinerary?

[thewinchester]

Just want to run this past the AFF brains trust, to see if there's any tricks I may have missed to get the price of this itinerary down.

Looking at going to Abu Dhabi for their F1 GP in November, with stops into HKG and SIN on the way home.

This is what I've come up with so far, which is pricing out at ~AUS 2894:

Ticket	Flight	Depart Port	Depart Date	Arrive Port	Arrive Time	Class	Approx fare (AUD)	SC Earned
#1	QF762	PER	26 Oct 13 07:30	MEL	14:00	Y-	see next line	20
-	QF9	MEL	26 Oct 13 16:25	DXB	23:25	Y-	1359.34	45
#2	CX738	DXB	6 Nov 13 00:55	HKG	07:05	J	see next line	120
	CX713	HKG	9 Nov 13 09:10	SIN	16:10	J	1004.28	80
#3	QF78	SIN	12 Nov 13 18:35	PER	23:55	Y	530.00	50
						Totals	~2894	315
							Price per SC	AUD 9.18

Routing/ticketing reasons:

Multiple tickets: Flights will be done as three tickets, as that seems the best way to drive down the price as low as i've got. Pricing this out on a single ticket issued QF is upwards of AUD 6.7k, and the online sites were giving upwards of AUD 7.6k.

xMEL: The PER-xMEL-DXB is selected for two reasons:
a) why fly direct when you can connect, and
b) first *ever* trip on an A380.

CX ex-DXB: The CX flights are:
a) quoted and priced as a single ticket, due to how that carrier hoses you on Asian one-way segments, and
b) booked J due to a barely AUD400 price difference between CX Y and J prices which returns double the SC's.

Re-qualification goals: Currently QFF SG with 65 SC for qualifying year (Feb-Jan), and this will take me to 380 SC. The remaining 220 SC I should be able to breeze in using domestic sectors. Will also mean it's the first year i've re-qualified and held my status (personal achievement)

RTW and Explore rules not met: Due to the routings and backwards directions, none of the xONEx are valid. My current thinking also suggests Explorer fares won't help either due to the lack of segments within Asia.

So, what do you think?

Is there anything you can think of that i've missed? If there is, I'd be pleased to know so I can really hit this out of the park.

Or, would I just be better off booking this as an xONEx, and doing a mileage run in the process using as many sectors as possible.

All thoughts and inputs welcomed and greatly appreciated.

 

[Happy Trails]

You could book SIN-PER return for about the same $500 price, might be handy for a positioning flight next year.
And I believe it's only 25SC, unless it's truly 'Y', or you're on a DSC promo.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Instead of the QF78 SIN/PER you could always go Jetstar on 3K131 1750/2310.

Fare incl taxes AUD166.06 / plus bundle AUD42.00 / checked bag AUD28.00 = total AUD236.06.

OR

If you're prepared to fly at stupid-o-clock take 3K133 0210/0730.

Fare incl. taxes AUD126.06 / plus bundle AUD42.00 / checked bag AUD28.00 = total AUD196.06.*

*Note this is a Hot Fare (sale fare) which I think needs to be purchased by 14July13 so you'd need to book asap.

OR

Check what the CX fare is DXB/HKG/KUL then do a QF Partner/Classic Award KUL/PER however you can't check this online as the Australian site won't show PER as a destination ex KUL then when you look at the worldwide sites there is not a Malaysian site & even if you choose the SIN site PER still will not appear as a destination. I'm guessing you want to stopover in SIN for a couple of nights so this option probably no use to you.

 

[ithongy]

Don't take the stupid o'clock JQ flight PER-SIN. Been there done that... A320 plane and its bloody cramped. Lights don't go off until maybe 2 hours into flight and they serve meals right away when you're body wants to sleep after 1215 takeoff. Never again will I do that JQ PER-SIN flight.

 

[aikman]

Here's an alternative itinerary. It costs $50 more but gets 75 more SCs.

QF PER-SIN-PER in Y from .br for $567
MH SIN-KUL-DXB in J for $1,373
CX flights as is

 

[Mwenenzi]

The .br thread (as referenced above) http://www.australianfrequentflyer....as-syd-mel-sin-510-a-48002-25.html#post859881

Be very carefull about the fare buckets in ecomony fares. Few, if any are true Y earning