<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Guy Betsy:
When it comes to Business Class and First Class fares however, it is a different ballgame. The direct published fares will work out cheaper than CX. CX does not have to 'deter' a business person to take its longer flight via HKG. The theory is that if you're already paying for J or F, you'd want to take the best possible route to your destination. That said however, CX does offer some rates for Australia but these are not published and are not on CX leverage. They can only be bought at certain ethnic asian travel agencies. Overall the cost savings isn't that much better (some are even more than the direct QF/UA fares) but if you insist, they do exist.</font>
Fascinating. I'm not sure I'm prepared to pay much of a
premium to take the longer trip on CX -- yes, I'd be more comfortable, but it
is a longer trip.
I played around with cathaypacific.com for some fares that are (I think) SITI. HKG-SYD is, sure enough, ~US$2000 one-way. But BKK-HKG-SYD is "only" ~US$1220. And of course the YYZ-HKG-BKK costs less than just YYZ-HKG. So if I'm willing to accept a stopover in BKK, another visit to the Wing, etc. then the north pacific routing becomes cheaper than at least the full-fare QF routing. Perhaps other destinations in Asia are comparable.
For a return, I see SYD-HKG-YYZ at ~US$4520 (ouch!). SYD-HKG is ~$1912 and HKG-YYZ is ~$2530 -- so little savings by splitting the two. But I've heard it's possible to get SYD-LAX-east coast fares at Australia SITI prices in the realm of $2000-$2500. If I could do that, perhaps I could make my own circle pacific routing for less than the "discount" circle pacific fare. Will think about this some more and update this thread if I come up with anything that seems sensible.