Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - Puzzle - One way from Cairns to Calgary

Hello good folk of FT!

My wife and I are finishing a year long trip through NZ, Thailand, and Australia. We came on a one way ticket, and now we need a one way ticket back home.

I have been doing a bunch of searching and cannot seem to find anything very affordable. I was wondering if any of you have some advice for us.

Here are the details:
Leave Cairns (CNS) - around July 10th (+ or - a few days)
Arrive in Calgary (YYC)

We have Aeroplan, Alaska Airlines, and American Airlines milage programs.

It doesn't matter how many layovers we have (within reason).

We would like the flight to be around $1000 CAD.
(we came for $900 via YYC, SEA, LAX, PPT, AUK)

Any help and advice would be appreciated!
Cheers,
- Lowell

CAN$1000 is about AUD$1150
10 July is the middle of school holidays, as well as being a Friday. Weekends are more popular for travel. From BNE/SYD/MEL you may find something. But if trying to have CNS as a starting on the same ticket/PNR little chance

Do you want to come back ?
Look at returns. including on V Australia (http://vaustralia.com.au/) as well as the usual suspects of Qantas, UA & Air New Zealand. A return may be cheaper than a one way. Also CO fly into Cairns from Guam.

You may find cheaper flights via Asia (SIN/HKG/??) on seperate tickets Aust - Asia & Asia - Canada

Hmmm...

Nice easy one way CNS-AKL-YVR-YYC on NZ.... but it's US$ 1600....

A return on QF/AC is the same price (Jul 10 - Nov 11 just for test purposes)

SYD-YYC return quoted as USD$1138 on DL... via LAX and SLC....

One way? USD$1494 on NZ...

Seems like a return is the way to go???

The lowest transpac fares are SYD or MEL to LAX/SFO. There is new competition from VAustralia and Delta, more seats with the A380 in the mix, and of course slack demand with the economy. Suggest looking into connecting one of those with a discount fare on each end (JQ or DJ and maybe WestJet up to YYC). If SEA works, there are also very low fares from the LA area (again a matter of new competition).

We will be in CNS early July too! As others mentioned, everything CNS-related jumps up on July 1 (I didn't know why until this thread). If you can start your return travel in June, that will save you more $$.

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions.

We will discuss shortening our trip and see if leaving at the end of June will save us $$. It would be a pity to cut down out trip as we only have 1 month to see MEL to CNS.

I will also look into flights through Asia.

The best deal I was able to find so far has been a decent deal through American Airlines Australia from CNS to LAX. It comes out to $1200 AUS. It is a long travel time as it goes CNS - SYD - Tokyo - LAX. Then I found a $190 flight from LAX to YYC.

It seems like some of the cheapest options will be to buy a seat sale round trip from Aussie to LAX and then just not take the last flight. Is there any issues with this method? Would Aussie customs and immigration have an issue with me leaving their country on a return flight?

Thanks again for your thoughts. i have been watching the other discussions on Aussie as I plan out our route up the east coast. We are looking forward to chillaxing in Oz. We just want to make sure we can get home without having to pay huge for the tickets. *grin*

Cheers,
- Lowell

Lowell- Just noticed your thread again...have you and your wife booked any flights?

Others probably have more experience but I can't think of why there would be a problem with "throwaway" ticketing. Airlines sometimes demand reimbursement from frequent and habitual users of this practice; as long as you haven't done this often in the past it shouldn't be an issue. I can't see why immigration would have an issue either.

Looking forward to your update!

A cheaper option would be to fly to Sydney on Virgin Blue 7 July AU$179 + $8 luggage (or Jetstar$229 incl 20kg) then...
Sydney to Honolulu on Jetstar 7 July AU$578 (incl. 20kg luggage) but no meals or entertainment as they are extra.
Honolulu to Calgary (via Seattle) on Alaska Airlines same day US$276 (cheaper if you can find a promotional code)

And all for approx AU$1128

Good luck:)