Originally Posted by
Platy
I've seen fares in J between Australia and YVR / USA for as little as $4700 on Air Canada and Air NZ. Now that AA and QF have "ceased" their trans Pacific marriage, AA fares can be far more competitive than those of QF.
With Air Canada about to start flights from MEL there will be increased competition between BNE/SYD/MEL to YVR.
Don't forget to check Air NZ via AKL - they occasionally have some very competitive fares.
Also AA have a 787 running AKL-LAX which may offer reward opportunities (if you can work out which seat you want in their forward/backward facing layout).
Do you check alternative routes to use up your points? JAL fly NRT-YVR and CX fly HKG-YVR with more availability than QF for reward seats with redemptions possible through QF or AA points! You won't see the JAL rewards on the QF website.
Another alternative is to buy cheap fare to HNL when they arise (check Hawaiian and QF) can be around $3,000-$3,500 in J - you can pick up a cheap fare on WestJet to complete the journey (if you can stomach a leg in economy to save the cash) or use points from HNL to YVR on AA etc in the event you can't use points to get from Australia to YVR.
Hawaiian also do BNE-HNL as well as SYD-HNL and are using their new lie flat J product. IME a comfortable product with excellent service.
At those price points on AC and NZ, why would you worry about QF's usually exorbitant fares and a ancient J seats?
QF marketing is a mysterious beast - I get countless emails for economy fares which I haven't bought from them for more years than I can remember.....on the other hand I have had several status credit bonus offers in the last 6 months or so and not flown with them for over 6 months...(although I did buy over $10,000 of J fares during one status credit offer only to cancel al of them later).
On the other hand, I'm seeing my browser offer up ads related to recent flight searches on the QF website...
Thanks Platy - all good tips - some of which I've used - what really surprised me (and hence my OP) was that QF had a sale fare offered during the North American ski holiday season (and exactly suited the dates where we had accomodation booked). I too have seen some very good fares but usually they don't suit us at the time (e.g. conflict with already booked travel or wrong season or whatever). The HNL option is a good one which I've considered from time to time but always found a better alternative. In fact we recently book HA to HNL (for an Hawaii vacation) at $3600 pp - seemed like a great deal considering they now have flatbeds and J* Starclass was almost the same price (and QF was over $5000).