Qantas ramdom pricing

[2muchplastic]

I was just having a play about with some random dates to try and get award flights with various carriers/alliances (4 altogether!) to marry up so that we can travel to Europe and back in J/F.

In pricing up a one-way first from LHR-SIN (don't ask) on 31/1/09 I get the following options:
From To Flight Business First
22:00 London (Heathrow) 18:35
(Sun) Singapore QF10 £3984 £6323
Duration: 12h 35m

11:15 London (Heathrow) 08:00
(Sun) Singapore QF32 £3984 £3932

Now QF10 is going to be a B744 and QF32 an A388. I was under the impression that there was to be no discount F class on the A388, so how else can you explain that First on the new flagship plane is cheaper than Business on an old clunker??

(Apologies for poor formatting above)

[Dave Noble]

There is an oddity in the fares

There is no discount availability on the 388; there is F and R availability only; For 1st class one way, the only 1st class fares are in R and F, no A fare

For some bizarre reason , the R fare is GBP3731 whilst the J fare is GBP3783 and the F fare is GBP6122 ( all plus taxes )

Dave

[2muchplastic]

Originally Posted by Dave Noble

There is an oddity in the fares....

Random pricing at it's best. Should we take bets on how long the Qantas lurkers take to find that and change it?

<<starts stopwatch>>

So that's it folks. If you want a cheap one way LHR-SIN fare in the new First on the newest QF A380, you've got about 20 minutes to get your credit cards out.

[fraserm]

You'll also notice that if you change the booking to LHR-SYD on the same date the same sort of thing happens..

[Dave Noble]

I hope the stopwatch is still running

Dave

[2muchplastic]

Originally Posted by Dave Noble

I hope the stopwatch is still running

Dave

It is. I'm very surprised - maybe there's no resident lurkers on a Sat night/Sun morning!

[AusEuroFlyer]

I'd have been tempted if it weren't for the fact that I already have a trip booked on that date and my trip to SIN/SYD has to be two weeks later.

[2muchplastic]

Stopwatch is still running, and no change yet.

Perhaps it is a deliberate ploy? Maybe they don't want to suffer the ignominy of running their flagship First half (or worse, as I remember from QF009's trip report when travelling in SQ Suites) empty? Or perhaps it is just the pricing dice have chucked out a bum number.

Picking some random dates up to the end of Feb gives the same result (so AusEuroFlyer, don't put the credit cards away just yet!)

[number_6]

QF is doing lots of strange pricing these days. Looking at a single route LAX-SYD there are now J prices from USD 5000 to USD 18000 depending on the date (and fare basis). All for the same product. On some dates J is pricing within a few hundred dollars of Premium Economy! Other days it is higher than the lowest available F. Quite a range indeed. BA appears to be trying to "compete" on this route, offering a cheap J fare LAX-LHR-SYD. Haven't seen pricing like this in the past decade. I know current loads were hurting because of the holidays, but it looks like QF has found all of 2009 to be a holiday, at least for a few days each week. A 1 day change in travel date can be 50% difference in fare in 2009.

[serfty]

Transpacific in the second ¼ of this year I see lmost universal D class availability which is a huge contrast to the same period a year ago.

The previously rare critter known as "I class" is also readily available. Last year this only tended to pop up occasionally on the odd lightly loaded flight a few weeks before departure.