Flying to Canada return from SYD. How can I maximise points on a budget?

[Jimbo B]

Hello fellow travellers!

I will be flying to Canada (Toronto) sometime in December and returning to Australia (Sydney) in late January.
I am definitely not loaded by any stretch of the imagination and am very new to the AFF life of scoring deals and having knowledge about how to do so.
I am currently a QFF and VVFF member with minimal SC and points, and as hinted to before, not much spending money.
Anyway, my partner is Canadian and will be flying their flagship airline AC via her mother's bonus flights.
So I am chasing a cheap flights and would love to begin building my SC and points for future travel, especially along this same route.
I have no qualms in flying any airline, so long as it's reasonably comfortable and the service is reasonable too.

I know not having specific dates doesn't help, but can anyone help out this rookie?

Cheers

 

[clazman]

If the flights are with AC they have their own points scheme (aeroplan).

Is the entire flight on AC?

 

[david1]

Maybe the first thing to consider is what you are trying to achieve. Are you aiming for a particular status with a particular airline, are you trying to collect points with a particular destination in mind, or are you trying to find the cheapest price? How you weight those objectives will affect your choice.

 

[AviationNZ]

Probably best to ascertain where you'll be flying most regularly for the immediate future and also any potential credit cards that will link to FF programs.

If you end up choosing to fly AC to Toronto, you can select any of the Star Alliance member programs to credit the flights (SQ, NZ, UA, etc). However, personally I'd suggest one of the options below;

NZ to YVR & AC to YYZ (crediting Velocity)
QF to LAX/DFW & AA to YYZ (crediting QFF)

 

[Jimbo B]

Her flight will be with AC, and I'm fairly certain she has aeroplan. I haven't sorted my flight yet and we have agreed that I will get whatever flight is cheapest for now until we are in a better financial position. When that happens we will look to travel together. Thank you for replying by the way.

Can someone tell me how to reply directly to someone's post, because I've seen other replies where the orginal person's response is put in a bubble type format at the top. For instance, this reply of mine is directed at clazman, but I'm unaware if they know that. I hope this makes sense!

 

[Jimbo B]

Right now I am still trying to figure out what is the best route for us in terms of everything flying. Due to my partner originating from Canada and me from Australia, and our long term plans to split our time between the two countries, we will be doing our fair share of flying over the years. Obviously, no way near some of you people who do it for work or as part of your work, but more than the average joe.

To answer your question, our aim is to make our future travel plans as comfortable and affordable as possible. Thank you for replying to my post.

 

[Jimbo B]

Thank you for this insight. I love this site and the willingness of everyone to help out people they have never before met or seen. It is a really cool concept.

 

[Jimbo B]

So, not sure if you've been made aware that Virgin has just started another Happy Hour and I can get return flights from MEL (my closest international) to LAX for under $1000. The flights I would take total $978.63 and I would need to sort out flight from there to TOR, which at the moment look like costing $600. Is the initial deal from MEL to LAX too good to pass up? Or am I just getting ahead of myself?
The dates work for our planned trip back to Canada and I wouldn't have to travel to Sydney as we plan to do. The reason for the longer trip to Sydney is that AC fly from there not MEL and my partner needs to fly with them. Unless we see very cheap flights from MEL to SYD I will leave from MEL and my partner will leave from SYD.
We have the funding to buy these now, but I wanted to console AFF and its great community first before making a call.

As always, thank you all for taking the time to read and reply to my posts.
Cheers, Jimbo B

 

[clazman]

Not the most direct route but CX - Melbourne - Hong Kong - Toronto is something to look at, until i saw the price hmm $2.7K

AC also has a sale on flights from Sydney to Toronto Great deals - aircanada.com $2K return or if you grab the Virgin LAX flight at $1K it would be $600 return to Toronto Great deals - aircanada.com

 

[Jimbo B]

Thanks Clazman!

I had a look on through Skyscanner and there are return flights to from MEL to YYZ with stopovers in Perth and Dubai for $1420. It is with Etihad and partly supported by VA. Do you know if I could receive points for VVFF for the whole trip? If so, what is the process? Or do Etihad and VA not have that kind of arrangement?

Cheers