Skyscanner picks this up too, at around $3700 aud FRA-SYD. Great price for quality airlines. Pity it's not available the other way round.
would seem our European friends get a signficantly better deal than us - in my early scans of QF website, its at least $500 - $2000 cheaper... Until I get the time to investigate more, it would make sense to "become" one of these Europeans; my thinking had been to get a one way 're-positioning' flight (via rewards points or just outright buy a one way passage on EK, for example) and then start to buy return tickets at that end. Heck even if for whatever reason you didn't fly back to to Europe, the return fare is cheaper than a one way passage to Europe. I had been trying to work out the optimal dates but for example, you could 'start' in Europe, fly to Australia, stay for 11 months, fly back to Europe even if only for 4 weeks, then fly back to Australia for another 11 months, so on so forth..
I would note that QF give our more FF status credits for its own tickets, but it would appear that chasing these is a red herring put in to make people think its important, It takes a mind-set shift to contemplate that one would be better served, working out a way to take advantage of the fares ex Europe than ex Australia. If the savings just on this one ticket is in the order of $3,700 to $4,700, it pays for itself within one year!
eg Bus tickets sale ex Australia $7,500 return this year and say $7500 next year (but do the one way re-positioning (but NOT ON QF Unless doing it as a one way classic award), then book a J return ex Europe, and then later a second J return ex Europe (even if you forfeited the last leg), would it be right that you would be paying less than $15,000 for the 2 flights but it would need be on equivalent airlines ?
And noting; that doing it by points redemption is even cheaper again, but that involves a concerted effort to do the things necessary to generate the points, which i would be interested in as to if thats a 'set and forget' activity.... ponders
Presumably, airlines would be offering different fares in different geographic markets because of different demands, so that in effect we in Australia are tied into higher prices because we are willing to use their service (as the home airline) and also pay more for that same service?
