Originally Posted by
dereiziger
For the dates I'm planning, all of the major carries are within a few dollars of each other. Swaying my vote is United or Delta/V Australia because I have FF programs with both of them.
United (in Economy Plus)
Delta (in Economy Comfort)
V Australia (in Premium Economy)
Qantas (in Premium Economy)
I find this hard to believe. Qantas LAX-SYD return in Premium Economy is currently "from US$3048". United LAX-SYD return in Economy is currently sub-US$1500 for much of the year.
Even if you were to buy the annual Economy Plus option for United (if you don't have status and get it for free) then that's $499 for the year for up to 2 people.
Originally Posted by
HkCaGu
Beside the old birds issue, another one to consider is outbound SFO weather. The date I was looking at, LAX-SYD was zero on the cheapest class, which was still available on SFO-SYD, but I just can't imagine how early to fly LAX-SFO to avoid misconnecting.
It depends a bit on the time of year, but weather days late in the day aren't overly common for larger planes, and even when there are delays they normally aren't more than an hour or so. United is also fairly good at putting people on the direct flights if there's a chance than you're not going to make the connection (eg, if you're on LAX-SFO-SYD and LAX-SFO looks like it may be delayed, they will normally move you do LAX-SYD just by asking). Both LAX and SFO are excellent for UA-to-UA connections, even from Domestic to International (same terminal, or adjacent terminals connected by a short air-side walk)