Commuting to the US

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spiggy_topes

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I am planning a new business venture that is going to involve a lot of travel between Queensland and the US (8-12 times a year) and need to work out how much to budget for airfares.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but can anybody tell me if there exist reasonably priced business class travel on this route? Are there alternatives to Qantas/United, for instance via Hawaii or NZ? Qantas quote $12800 return, United are about the same which is enough for a RTW fare, but Virgin appear to be launching a new service - will this affect fares?

Many thanks.
 
Take a look on zuji... some options for BNE-LAX are American Airlines (ie QF - $5789), Hawaiian ($5800), Air Tahiti ($6573). There are also cheaper options via Asia.
 
Virgin fares will be cheaper, but it will be a number of months until they start up.

Business fares aren't cheap transpacific. Some people fly J* to HNL, and then use a Y-UP to fly to the states. But it's not really business class, like you get on QF or UA.

I think NZ's business class is about the same cost, but I've never checked.

Brisbane (BNE) to San Francisco (SFO) - Cheap Flights, Discount Airline Tickets and Low Airfares

should give you an idea of how much a BNE-SFO economy fare is on all the airlines. Not sure if there is something similar for Business.
 
There has been mention that by getting High status on UA, you can virtually Guarantee J seating trans-pacific when Flying United on economy fares.
 
Most of the time, the cheapest between Aus and USA with OneWorld airlines is to use Circle Pacific DCIR22 fare. Not as cheap as some mentioned above, but a regular published fare and provides for multiple stopovers and travel beyond LAX if required.
 
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Thank you all very much for those suggestions - will follow them all up in detail.

I am currently platinum on QF, but perhaps it's time to change to United if the upgrade opportunities are better?
 
Not sure if it is unique to some discount deal my company has - I have used the D OneWorld Explorer (DONE4) for trips to the US on four occasions and have found it to be about 30% cheaper than QF J trans-Pacific plus a few US internal hops and return. The discounted rate also only appies for QF, AA and BA - I cant use other OW members and still get the discount.

Pros: it allows me to catch up with my sister and other rellies in the UK either before or after my US business. It's also great for earning miles and status credits.

Cons: the extra travel time and the minimum intinerary duration of 10 days (no good if you only need to be in the US for a few days and need to get straight back).
 
dot said:
Not sure if it is unique to some discount deal my company has - I have used the D OneWorld Explorer (DONE4) for trips to the US on four occasions and have found it to be about 30% cheaper than QF J trans-Pacific

Out of curiosity, how much (roughly) does that equate to? My last SYD-LAX-DFW-MCI return trip (in QF J and AA F) was approx $8,500. If I could make that a DONE4 for similar money I'd definitely consider doing that next time!

Cheers,
- Febs.
 
My last DONE4 cost 10500 incl taxes/surcharges. I think the base price is about 9500 now.
 
Febs said:
Out of curiosity, how much (roughly) does that equate to? My last SYD-LAX-DFW-MCI return trip (in QF J and AA F) was approx $8,500. If I could make that a DONE4 for similar money I'd definitely consider doing that next time!


The last three DONE4s have been:
MAY07 - $8030 incl tax
FEB07 - $9360 incl tax
OCT06 - $8073 incl tax

While I don't have the quotes for the direct option any more (I gave up on getting a quote on a direct option for the most recent two - because I know the DONE4 option will be cheaper) I recall previous quotes being in the order of $12,000 to $12,500 for MEL-LAX-AUS-LAX-MEL.

In addition, the travel agent charges a $55.08 transaction fee.
 
Has anyone purchsed a DCIRCx fare recently?

I have a China - USA trip coming up in September so am interested in cost difference between Y and D for a Circle Pacific fare
 
Shano said:
I have a China - USA trip coming up in September so am interested in cost difference between Y and D for a Circle Pacific fare

Obviously have to get a travel agent to provide a current quote inc. taxes, but a fare estimate (exc. taxes) is now found on the oneworld website for Circle Pacific fares (as well as all other circle/RTW fares)
 
dot said:
Not sure if it is unique to some discount deal my company has - I have used the D OneWorld Explorer (DONE4) for trips to the US on four occasions and have found it to be about 30% cheaper than QF J trans-Pacific plus a few US internal hops and return. The discounted rate also only appies for QF, AA and BA - I cant use other OW members and still get the discount.
My company used to have a similar deal. We received a discount off the list price based on the miles flown on each of those carrier's flight numbers. From memory, and it was a few years back that we had that program), we received 13% off QF, and 11% off AA and BA. So there was a real incentive to maximise the QF flight numbers, including code shares. It was a strange situation that adding 4 QF domestic sectors to the end of a DONE4 would reduce the overall cost!

As a result, some of my DONE4s were structured with only one non-QF flight number (the trans-Atlantic segment). All the rest were QF flight numbers, either QF-operated or codeshares. The discount was almost $1000 on one occasion when I was optimising for minimum cost (a DONE4 where I was paying the difference between economy point-to-point fares and the OWE).

However, our current agreement is different. We now pay the list price for such fares and then the company gets a "kickback" at the end of each period (quarter I believe). That means the person/project paying for the airfare pays the full list price and the company travel dept is then funded by the kickbacks. I much preferred the old way.
 
dajop said:
Obviously have to get a travel agent to provide a current quote inc. taxes, but a fare estimate (exc. taxes) is now found on the oneworld website for Circle Pacific fares (as well as all other circle/RTW fares)
Cheers. Now gives me an idea of price differential between the L and D class fares.
 
If I am not mistaken, looking at the economy product LCIRx it appears that a LONE4 would be better value.

ex-Australia a LONE4 is priced from $3,289+++ ($3,479+++ peak season) where as a LCIR22 is priced from $3,069+++, a LCIR26 is priced from $3,739+++ and a LCIR29 is priced from $4,399+++.
 
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