Cheap QF,SN,MH seats in November - buy now or later??

[Ned261]

Cheap QF,SQ,MH seats in November - buy now or later??

Hi all, I'm planning on flying MEL-CDG with my wife and 3yo in November and am considering either Qantas, Singapore or Malaysia. Reasons - Qantas: club member; SQ & MH: reports of consistently high service standards; also SQ uses the A380 on part of this route.

Current specials for those airlines at the moment are around $1950, $2400 and $2250 respectively.

Are these prices bargains or not? Would you recommend that I buy these tickets now or wait for sales (or kids-fly-free offers) to be repeated at a later date?

Thanks in advance. :mrgreen:

 

[straitman]

Hi all, I'm planning on flying MEL-CDG with my wife and 3yo in November and am considering either Qantas, Singapore or Malaysia. Reasons - Qantas: club member; SN & MH: reports of consistently high service standards; also SN uses the A380 on part of this route.

Current specials for those airlines at the moment are around $1950, $2400 and $2250 respectively.

Are these prices bargains or not? Would you recommend that I buy these tickets now or wait for sales (or kids-fly-free offers) to be repeated at a later date?

Thanks in advance. :mrgreen:

Ned261,

Welcome to AFF.

There is no right or wrong answer (actually my crystal ball is broken) because non of us are privy to the airline black art of yield management and we have no idea of where the world financial crisis is really heading.

The best answer is buy when you are comfortable with the fares and don't loose sleep if they drop a little more. On the other hand loads may get heavy when you want to travel and if you don't commit then you could find remaining seats are dearer.

Based purely on price I probably wouldn't go for the 10-20% dearer options though.

I hope this helps.

 

[Alanslegal]

As what straitman says - there is no right or wrong time to purchase as long as you're comfortable with the price at the time of transaction. Buying a flight ticket is almost like buying a loaf of bread or a carton of milk except on a larger scale!

Before the GFC any flight to CDG for around $2k was a good price - but now in the year of travel deals and especially the year to be travelling - $2k to me, may seem alot!

If this was me, and being eight months out from the proposed trip, I'd sit tight for a couple more months just to see if new promotions are released. Its a risk but as with every decision in life is one.

 

[Ned261]

Thanks guys for the info. If the current financial crisis and expectations of resultant lower prices was excluded, would these prices appear attractive then? I'm of the opinion that if airlines need to discount too far then they'll probably just dump a service or two instead.

I've seen Singapore economy prices for May/June only start to kick in at around $3000-3200, so do you know if under $2500 is historically pretty good value for Singapore? Has anyone seen Singapore do this for less? Does Singapore ever do kids-fly-free offers?

Just looked into Qantas flying to CDG, and the choice is either go through LHR or fly SIN-CDG operated by Air France - both unattractive options in my view. Hence my focus on Singapore.

 

[Flashback]

FWIW, I have booked PER-FRA and LHR-PER on Qantas for November for $2k return (or thereabouts). I decided to not take the gamble on whether it may be cheaper, as I was expecting to pay around 2-2.5k anyway.

My sister flew PER-LHR-PER last year on Emirates for $1,600 all in, during July also (which I believe to be high season)! Did very well on that one. Even got op-up'd from DXB-LHR, lucky girl!

 

[Evan]

Not being picky, but SN is the IATA code for Brussels Airlines (ICAO code is DAT) i believe,
SQ is for Singapore Airlines.

E

 

[Ned261]

Not being picky, but SN is the IATA code for Brussels Airlines (ICAO code is DAT) i believe,
SQ is for Singapore Airlines.

E

fair enough .. changed to SQ in the first post (not sure what Brussels Airlines is like, but there's probably a reasonable difference I imagine)

 

[Flashback]

BTW, welcome to AFF Ned261!

 

[Evan]

fair enough .. changed to SQ in the first post (not sure what Brussels Airlines is like, but there's probably a reasonable difference I imagine)

Could be fun to find out thats the kind of crazy guys we are around here.... you will see.