Weekly SYD-BNE round trip

[docjames]

@JohnK must have some tips on economical purchase of tickets etc. He’s been doing SYD-BNE-SYD for ages….

 

[TripleB]

I did a vaguely similar thing (ie self funded) between DRW and SYD for a number of years.

Some things that I was doing at the end that I wish I had been doing when I started (I appreciate that some of these are obvious for road warriors - but I wish I knew them when I started).

It's all much easier if you are earning a serious wedge and you can just throw money at everything (flex fares, cabs). I'm not sure where you sit on the cost sensitivity equation. Most of my tips are good for someone who would like to keep a lid on costs where possible and is prepared to accept some incremental inconvenience in exchange for more money in their pocket. If that's not you then please ignore the rest of what I have to say.

My tips:

• You're not going to be booking flexible fares - so missing your flight will be an expensive mistake. You need to accept that you will invariably miss some flights. My tip for keeping the cost of this down is to have some points in both Qantas and Virgin. Quite often there will be last minute redemption seats available on the last flight of the day even if the cash fares are on the high side - so having some points means that you might be able to get home without the financial sting associated with last minute bookings.
• Spend a little bit of time working out what the realistic time between your respective doors (home / work) and the aircraft door is via cheapest mode is. That way when you are jammed on time you immediately know whether you must get an uber/cab or you can get a train. Also good for when you can't find a cab/uber and you want to know whether getting a train is an option.
• Also at Sydney one day when you have plenty of time you might like to give getting off the train at Mascot and walking to the terminal a go. The cost saving of Mascot vs Domestic is substantial. On those days when I am running well ahead of time I still tend to swap half an hour in the lounge (which is what I would be doing if I went right through to Domestic) for some exercise and some extra dollars in my pocket. If you are going to be doing this every week then just getting out at Mascot and walking once a month will save you a good sum of money.
• You need a separate travel set of everything (including clothes, phone charger, toothbrush). I had a small duffle bag with a single set of everything in it ready to go at pretty much all times. That way when you invariably get jammed for time and have to rush to the airport less prepared than you want to be you can pick it up and rush out the door - safe in the knowledge that you have at least the essentials. You may be able to use a dry cleaners near your SYD office as both a laundry and storage for some clothes so you don't have to lug as many things backwards and forwards.
• Get very familiar with the last moment to cancel your flight without losing the entire fare (if that's possible). Because I was always buying different fare classes on different airlines I'd always note down in my outlook calendar the last minute to cancel/change. Invariably you'll be cancelling at the last minute when you have a stack of unexpected stuff going on so save yourself the heartache and diarise it up front.
• I'd also make sure that I was familiar with the baggage drop and boarding door closed deadlines. They have changed recently.
• Also get familiar with your plan E and Fs. For example I was in Sydney one weekend and booked on the evening SYD-DRW. I absolutely categorically needed to be in Darwin the next morning. A pretty miserable hail storm rolled through in the afternoon and a whole load of flights were cancelled including my Darwin flight (and the only other flight on a different airline that night). Because of all the cancellations they weren't prepared to re-route me that evening through MEL or BNE. But they were prepared to put me on a CBR-MEL to connect with the evening MEL-DRW. I just needed to somehow get to Canberra. I got the bus to CBR and just made it to the airport as the flight was boarding. My suggestion would be to spend an hour or two working out how you'd get from Sydney CBD to Newcastle or Canberra airports or from Gold Coast or Maroochydore to Brisbane in a pinch. I know that this sounds complete overkill but I can't tell you how much professional bother I would have been in had I not made it to Darwin that night and I was lucky the stars aligned with the Murray's bus! If I were you I'd also have a rough idea what time the XPT train and the greyhound overnight services leave. I know this sounds a bit over the top and SYD-BNE is much more frequent than SYD-DRW. I got lucky because I was familiar with the Murray's Canberra bus but if I had my time again I would have spent the time doing the desktop planning of my options in case of a major problem at Sydney airport from day 1. There are now more and more services to Newcastle and it's a good bit closer than Canberra so it's not a bad option if you are really really jammed.
• You need to plan ahead for school holidays. Also remember that NSW and Queensland school holidays usually don't overlap perfectly so the effective window for more expensive fares and hotels is longer than you may first think.