Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - do the australia airlines work like the us?

I was warned that I should buy my airline plane tickets early from cairns back to where I was flying back to Hong Kong(melbourne). So a trip from MEL to cairns on June 23- June 28. Now the tickets went up. But it is a Friday, so I don't know if I should rush to book them before they go up anymore, or they work like US agencies where the price drops on the monday or tuesday afterwards.

Prices go up & down all the time. Not based on the day of the week you are buying.

Qantas (QF) (www.qantas.com.au), Jetstar (JQ) (www.jetstar.com.au) (LCC owned by Qantas) and Virgin Blue (DJ) (www.virginblue.com.au) all have sales from time to time. Both airlines have reduced flights to/from Cains recently.

Flights are sold as "one ways". No advantage buying a return apart from saving on the cc fee. Some people will fly QF one way & DJ back.

We're getting very regular sales on domestic routes atm so best bet is to keep your eye on the websites (or better sign up for email alerts) and jump in when a good sale comes alone

I purchased MEL-CNS a few months ago for a trip in July. FYI we paid AUD 282 one-way. As I recall the fares were cheaper right around your dates and then took a jump in very late June. I've checked occasionally and we did OK for a fare that allows checked luggage. Might have saved AUD 50 or so if I camped on the computer for a month!

Look on the Qantas and Jetstar's website for Australians for the best fare sales. Virgin runs a daily "happy hour" from 1200-1300 SYD time.

Unfortunately, you may have missed the boat - if it ever sailed.

Late June is the start peak School Holiday season from which runs until Mid July and there's little chance for sales during this period - especially to holiday destinations like Cairns.

Even the current Qantas Domestic sale which finishes at 4pm UTC, 3rd May is only valid until 25th June - and does not include Cairns.

At the moment direct Qantas sells MEL/CNS for AUD269 e/e, JQ AUD229 & DJ AUD249. You will have trouble finding those prices at reasonable times on the days you wish to travel.

So if I chose Jetstar, how worried should I be about cancellations and time changes?

For June, I doubt you'll have much trouble as the flights would only be around 7 weeks away.

JQ only has 1 daily MEL-CNS nonstop. We got notification last week that our flight changed by 10 minutes, which is an important detail since I understand JQ enforces cutoff times *to the minute*.