LAX to Melbourne Economy

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judyinaz

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Nov 6, 2006
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Hello,

Husband and I are taking our first trip to Australia, and I'm terribly frightened about taking this long trip in economy. We're booked through a tour (Tauck), so I have a feeling that I can't get any upgrades unless I book through the tour company, and according to the Qantas web site, 2 business class tickets are over US$26,000. Ouch.

The plane is a 747-400 and we have seats 53H, J.

I have a bunch of points on USAirways, but I don't know if they can be transferred to Qantas for use on an upgrade, even if I could upgrade these tickets.

Can anyone give me any encouragement, tips, or hints to get more reasonably priced upgrades?

Thanks in advance for any ideas, and sorry if this has been asked/answered before. I looked through some posts but didn't find it.


Best,
judyinaz
 
Welcome to AFF judyinaz :)

The only ways to upgrade on Qantas (QF) are:

1) get really lucky and an operational upgrade (op-up) - these are rare as hens teeth so I'd rule this out as even a possibility

2) using QFF upgrade credits - since you don't have any and these are no longer issued that isn't an option for you

3) use a lot of QFF points - 72,000 required for one one-way LAX-SYD/BNE/MEL upgrade, cheapest fares (booking classes N, O and Q) are not able to be upgraded. From mileage converter, I see that 4 million US Dividend miles convert to 75,000 or 72,000 Qantas miles. So an extremely poor use of points.

4) pay for a higher class
 
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Lliterally thousands of people survive the trans-Pacific flights in economy every week. Yes, its much nicer in business class, but it is also way more expensive. You can do it for a lot less than the US$26,000 you noted. The cheapest regular published fare to get you from LAX to MEL is the OneWorld Circle Pacific that involved routing one-way via Hong Kong or Tokyo. The price for a DCIR22 Circle Pacific business class ticket purchased in the USA is currently US$5697.50 plus taxes, surcharges etc, so should be able to purchase two of these through AA for around US$12,000 all inclusive.

Upgrades on Qantas, even if you have enough QF FF points, are not confirmed and must be waitlisted. The waitlist is then processed the day of the flight based on FF status. So with no status, you are unlikely to succeed in your upgrade. And once you have trsnferred points into Qantas FF program, they cannot be transferred back out. They can only be used for QF awards (free flights, upgrades, hotel stays etc). So its a high risk option even if you find a way to get the points into QF. And it will cost you 72,000 QF FF points per person, each way. So to upgrade two people for the return journey will cost 288,000 QF FF points!

I think you will need to resign yourself to flying economy for the trip. You may like to consider reserving seats in rows 70-73 at the back of the plane where the seating is 2x4x2 instead of 3x4x3. The AB and JK seats are 2 together. Otherwise I would prefer DE or GH seats where you have the benefits of an aisle seat and not the problem of a Windows passenger trying to climb out over you to get to the lavs etc.
 
Thanks so much for both your replies.

We would probably not mind stopping if we could get business class seats for US$6,000 each. I went to the AA site, and those show US$12,000 each. I went to the One Circle web site, read the explanations, but their links are just to the AA site.

Can you tell a newbie how I arrange for that fare? Do I call AA?

Thanks for being patient with a newbie!
 
You need to speak to a travel agent to get your hands on a one world circle pacific fare, or perhaps AA. Cannot be booked online.

I've only ever booked them from this end through a travel agent, and they were cheaper than booking directly with the airline, but this maybe different in the US. Make some calls, best way to find out.

The other option available to you, is to do a similar Circle Pacific fare on Star Alliance (via Singapore or Seoul in one direction and Auckland in the other).
 
judyinaz said:
Can you tell a newbie how I arrange for that fare? Do I call AA?

Thanks for being patient with a newbie!
You can call the AA Around the World desk (1-800-247-3247) and ask for the OneWorld Circle Pacific fare. The fare basis is DCIR22 and permits up to 22,000 miles in business class. You must cross the south Pacific in one direction (ie LAX/SFO-SYD/MEL/AKL/BNE) and the North Pacific in the other direction (e.g. HKG-LAX/SFO, NRT-LAX). There are several other restrictions including minimum and maximum number of stopovers etc.
 
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