J to US

[HardieBoys]

Hi. Just organising a work trip to the US in 2007. Noted that the price is $13 000 on the QF site, and $US 10 000 on the AA site. It is clearly cheaper to get a RTW ticket in J. Any suggestions about getting a cheaper J fare on a oneworld carrier?

 

[Febs]

I haven't had to book much of my own travel lately, so please forgive me if I'm misled, but surely there are cheaper ways of buying tickets than directly from the QF website? Through a travel agency, if your work has an affiliation with one?

My recent trip to the US in J (including a total of 4 domestic US trips - 2 x Economy, 2 x First) was under $8,500.

$13,000 seems an awful lot.

Cheers,
- Febs.

 

[alect]

OneWorld Circle Pacific Fare (DCIRxx).

 

[NM]

Follow Alect's lead. The OneWorld Circle Pacific is the cheapest regular fare for business or first class travel between Australia and the LOTFAP. However, if you need to exceed the basic 22,000 miles of the DCIR22 fare, you will get better value from a DONE4 ATW fare.

I have not used anything other than DCIR22 or DONE4 fares for business class travel to the USA for about 5 years.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

That is fine if you have the time for the extra flights. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

 

[HardieBoys]

I love this board. The suggestion about a Circle Pacific fare is excellent, as I have friends in Asia that I visit very regularly, and this will give me a cost-effective means of including a visit.

I considered the $13K rack rate from the QF website to be the absolute maximum cost, and am heartened by reports of fares sub $10K.

With the project not coming on board till mid-2007, I have several months to work out the details...

 

[coco50]

[quote=HardieBoys]I love this board. The suggestion about a Circle Pacific fare is excellent, as I have friends in Asia that I visit very regularly, and this will give me a cost-effective means of including a visit.

I considered the $13K rack rate from the QF website to be the absolute maximum cost, and am heartened by reports of fares sub $10K.

With the project not coming on board till mid-2007, I have several months to work out the details...[/quote]

I agree about the great suggestions that you find on this board. I just priced the following itinerary with QFF using a DCIRC as the basis, and some of the stops in LOTFAP as additional:

BNE - LAX - DFW - CHS - JFK - ORD - SFO - HKG - SIN - BNE

The approx. cost including taxes for all travel in D class is around $9500 pp. I can book this in Jan '07 and pay and ticket 21 days before departure in Jun '07. However if fuel prices rise fares will inevitably rise. To lock in the low price there is a need to ticket earlier.

I must add that Caroline from the QFF call centre was extremely helpful.

 

[NM]

The approx. cost including taxes for all travel in D class is around $9500 pp. I can book this in Jan '07 and pay and ticket 21 days before departure in Jun '07. However if fuel prices rise fares will inevitably rise. To lock in the low price there is a need to ticket earlier.

Note you could save more on the fuel fines by having AA issue the ticket. They only charge fuel surcharges on the Trans-Pacific sectors, so no extras for the HKG-SIN and SIN-BNE sectors that QF will charge.

Current AA fuel surcharge for trans-Pacific (applies to BNE-LAX and SFO-HKG sectors) is US$75, making it a total of US$150 in fuel surcharges for the whole itineraty. Compare this to the current QF fuel surcharges as follows:

BNE-LAX = A$145
SFO-HKG =US$61.70
HKG-SIN = US$61.70
SIN-BNE = A$115

So assuming an exchange rate of 75c, AA will charge about A$200. And QF will charge about $424.50.

And its possible that AA may not even charge the fuel surcharges if you are not using the AA codeshare flight numbers since their Starfile implies their surcharge only applies to AA flights. I don't have the AA Starfile for Circle Pacific, but the OneWorld Explorer reads as follows:

 66N SURCHARGES                                                                 
 67N -----------                                                                
 68N .                                                                          
 69N COLLECT FUEL SURCHARGES AS FOLLOWS:                                        
 70N .                                                                          
 71N ------------------------------------------------------                     
 72N I AA TRANSATLANTIC         I 65.00USD                I                     
 73N I FLIGHTS EXCEPT ORD-DEL   I                         I       
 74N ------------------------------------------------------                   
 75N I AA NON-STOP ORD-DEL      I 135.00USD               I                     
 76N ------------------------------------------------------                     
 77N I AA TRANSPACIFIC FLIGHTS  I 75.00USD                I                     
 78N I EXCEPT:                  I 9000JPY                 I                     
 79N I TICKETS ORIGINATING IN   I                         I                     
 80N I JAPAN, FOR FLIGHTS       I                         I                     
 81N I BETWEEN JAPAN - US       I                         I                     
 82N ------------------------------------------------------                     
 83N I AA NON-STOP/DIRECT       I 75.00USD                I                     
 84N I FLIGHTS BETWEEN THE US - I                         I                     
 85N I AR/BR/CL/UY              I                         I                     
 86N ------------------------------------------------------

So if you have the option to purchase through AA instead of QF, you should save at least $200 and maybe more.

 

[coco50]

Thanks, NM. The more you read on this forum, the more you learn.

 

[Reggie]

So if you have the option to purchase through AA instead of QF, you should save at least $200 and maybe more.

NM,

We have a company travel agent in the US which I maybe able to use for booking a DONE4. Is there a problem booking through AA but using QF FF number and utilising QF status and points for for upgrades etc.

Reggie

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

NM,

We have a company travel agent in the US which I maybe able to use for booking a DONE4. Is there a problem booking through AA but using QF FF number and utilising QF status and points for for upgrades etc.

Reggie

Unless you are starting your DONE4 in USA (and not recommended since much more expensive than starting elsewhere, even compared with Australia), this is not a good idea. If you issue by US agent, you then have to pay the higher of the price at origin or price at country of agent. US price is higher than pretty much anywhere so that is the price you would need to pay.

What NM (and others) is suggesting is when you book with either airline or TA located in your departure country, you get them to issue on AA ticket stock. Obviously the only airline that will do that is AA. However travel agents generally have flexibility to issue on any airline that is included on the DONE4 itinerary (ie AA will be one of them). Some TAs may prefer to use QF but strictly there is no need to.

 

[Reggie]

Unless you are starting your DONE4 in USA (and not recommended since much more expensive than starting elsewhere, even compared with Australia), this is not a good idea. If you issue by US agent, you then have to pay the higher of the price at origin or price at country of agent. US price is higher than pretty much anywhere so that is the price you would need to pay.

What NM (and others) is suggesting is when you book with either airline or TA located in your departure country, you get them to issue on AA ticket stock. Obviously the only airline that will do that is AA. However travel agents generally have flexibility to issue on any airline that is included on the DONE4 itinerary (ie AA will be one of them). Some TAs may prefer to use QF but strictly there is no need to.

Thanks for that Kiwi Flyer. It is interesting that when I asked my TA back in April to book my DONE4 with AA, she said she couldn't as they used Qantas. However when the ticket was issued, it was an AA ticket. At the time I thought the wholesaler may have used it to save us money, or maybe to make them more money. All I could work out was the TA didn't really know what was going on.

Reggie

 

[bfmi]

NM,

We have a company travel agent in the US which I maybe able to use for booking a DONE4. Is there a problem booking through AA but using QF FF number and utilising QF status and points for for upgrades etc.

Reggie

Get the US agent to quote on it - can't hurt. Sometimes it works out and other times not. I find it's a function of their business, market and consolidators interest in the business at the time.

Example, even for Sydney/Melbourne travel I get better prices (sometimes) out of our US HQ TA compared to the QF website. But it all depends at that point in time.

Just make sure you know and/or specific the fare basis/buckets so you get what you want.

 

[NM]

In addition to the pricing variance due to country of issue vs country of origin as pointed out by Kiwi Flyer, I will add that the FF membership used to crediting points/miles has no link to the issuing airline. You can issue with AA and use QF FF program for earning and upgrade. You can use AA membership for points earning and use QF points for upgrades on QF flights.

The only time the issuing airline makes a difference is when you want to use AA eVIP upgrades for AA flights. In that instance the ticket must be issued by AA (001 ticket number), and if it was originally issued by another airline such as QF (081 ticket number) you will need to pay for it to be re-issued by AA before they can action the upgrade. This is because the actually rebook you into the upgrade class and hence need to re-issue the ticket to do that.