FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - How do I judge what is a good business class fare?
Old Nov 11, 2018, 2:40 am
  #8  
Unionruler
 
Join Date: May 2017
Location: SIN
Programs: AS MVPG75k, AA Plat
Posts: 740
Originally Posted by Vesalius
I am new to this forum, so thanks for your patience with a newcomer. I have recently experienced an increase in income and a desire to travel further afield as we can now afford to do so in comfort.

We are considering a trip from our home in New York to Australia next March and I started looking at fares. NY to Sydney has round trip 1-stop business class fares for $3900 per person on China Eastern, or $5100 on Etihad. I wish there was a non-stop but the distance appears to be too far. In any case, I am thinking to go with Etihad with a stop in Doha based on what seems to be their better reputation for quality cabins, food and service. How do I know if this is a good fare for this route? Right now this trip is about 5 months out. Is there any way to know when to time a purchase of business class tickets to get the best deal?

Thanks for any advice you might be able to offer.
I think you need to play around with Google Flights and some OTA aggregator like Momondo for at least two weeks to get the general sensing of prices. Everyone needs to develop their own price appetite as a rule of thumb in their head. For example for round trip itineraries, I don't look at anything more expensive than $2,400 (intercontinental between non-adjacent continents), $1,600 (intercontinental between adjacent continents) and $800 (intracontinental).

That being said, unfortunately for you, US to Australia has commanded high business class prices historically. You might want to look into repositioning to Canada (e.g. Toronto, Vancouver), Scandinavia (e.g. Gothenburg) or Italy in economy, and then fly onward to Australia on a cheaper business class ticket. Another way to get your cash outlay down would be buying Avianca LifeMiles for cash and redeeming those for business or even first class tickets.
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