Adam Smith

Can anyone share any insight on how AC prices its J tickets to Australia?

The wife and I are thinking of going in Q1 next year and I've been keeping an eye on prices. For a while, fares in the low $6000s (round trip) were available on certain days of the week, e.g. leaving Canada on a Wednesday and returning on a Sunday. Other days were in the low-mid $8000s. The "cheap" days were those with P space available. The more expensive ones were P0 and therefore showing more expensive Z fares.

A few days ago, pricing all of a sudden jumped to the $8000s no matter the combination of days. After checking EF, P fares are now available on all of the dates I had been looking at, but the cheapest P fare is over $8000.

When I search for flights that are closer in, say, this fall or summer, cheapest J fares available are still generally in the $8000s. And pricing seems to be the same whether looking at MEL, SYD or BNE.

I know that seat sales aren't really predictable, but is it likely pricing will improve at some point, or is low $8000s is the best it's going to get?

Any insight would be appreciated. ("Insight" doesn't include suggestions about how AC sucks and/or how it's much cheaper to fly through China or how great NZ is. I'm aware there are alternatives to AC and may choose one of those, but this question is specifically on AC's pricing).

Bartolo

Pretty much what I saw last year, this time, when I was planning a trip to OZ. I’ve done this trip several times and Tuesday - Wednesday travel has consistently been cheaper. Last year about $1000 each way at the time of booking. Also easier to upgrade 33/34 on these days. Fares were up and down and I almost gave up on booking but suddenly was able to grab a cheaper fare close to what I originally saw. Were Melbourne and Brisbane as expensive? I’m sure you know it’s the height of the Southern summer — which could be affecting pricing. I went in the (northern) fall.

FYI, I added a codeshare from Sydney to my final outbound destination on VA for very little extra (J) as all part of the AC tx.

Keep monitoring. Good luck. Amazing country to visit but very expensive.

tomvancouver

Prices go up and down this far out and $6k is 'good' for MEL and BNE, with SYD being more expensive. if you have the required (high) number of eups then PE may work well - I've been successful on upgrades 100% on both BNE and MEL routes (when I was SE) but never attempted for SYD.

I suggest monitoring the prices with an alert and jumping when the $6k returns - or to go with a special flight pass promo if one appears again.

lcohen999

As someone who does down under frequently...there are almost never good 'deals' in AC J

They just do not exist, simple as that. Even PE is pushing 4.5k these days if you miss an N fare.

Given the amount of competition on this route, AC banks on the 'non us factor (I assume) and just does their own thing.

So, basically there is no good news on this one.

ac777

AC s pricing is at best erratic. OP, if you are adventuresome and do not mind an extra flight try SFO-BNE as the prices are lower. You can not use the last flight and fly back to YYC from YVR. The difference in fare will more than pay for the extra flights or you can always use your AP points for the connecting flights.

worldtraveller73

This is what I would suggest as well: try departing from a US west coast city... especially one that has non stop United Service. It may bring the price down considerably at the cost of time spent travelling.

yyznomad

I think some of you missed this part of @Adam Smith's OP. (or maybe you didn't and just want to add to the FT fun of it all)

Adam Smith

Thanks @Bartolo, @tomvancouver and @lcohen999. Sounds like not a lot of likely upside to waiting, but not a ton of downside either.

Upgrades don't do it for me here. PE is close to $4K round trip, which is not terrible, but I'm unwilling to play aerolotto on 15-hour flights. That leaves me needing PE flexible, which is only ~$1000 below paid J, at which point I may as well save the large number of eUps. Same issue with booking Latitude and upgrading as well. I expired a lot of eUps last year, but in many past years, I've burned up the vast majority of them, and when throwing in the peace of mind of being confirmed in J, the handful of extra aeropesos (speaking of aeropesos, does any of you have the exact figures for YVR-BNE and YVR-MEL?), etc, I'd probably rather just eat the $1000.

MEL, SYD and BNE are basically all the exact same price on the dates I've been looking at.

The key right now is actually figuring out the opportunity cost of the 30% promo code I'd likely use if booking with AC. After applying that code, AC becomes quite competitive, price-wise, with the alternatives. Not a ton cheaper, but somewhat. And right now, I'm not seeing a whole lot of very productive uses for that code elsewhere. I already have a couple of trips to Europe in J booked for the remainder of this year and pretty much no vacation time left for big trips. Shorter trips with what little time I have available can likely be booked with Aeroplan; I also have two 20% off codes that expire next March that can be used for anything I want to book on a revenue ticket.

I assume you guys are talking about buying an AC ticket originating somewhere like SFO and doing, say, YYC-SFO-YVR-MEL, for example? I'm not seeing much of a price gap between YYC and US departures at all. In some cases, none, but where there is one, hardly enough to justify the hassle and expense (whether cash or miles) for the extra tickets.

And if you're talking about actually flying UA, let's not even go there. Until Polaris is guaranteed on all long-haul routes, I will not spend thousands of dollars on their pathetic hard product unless it's about 50% cheaper than AC's.

canolakid

You need to also consider what events down under would drive up pricing on the Aus-Cda legs- school holidays, start of vacation time, ski season. Recent example: lots of room Canada to Australia during the first week of the Commonwealth Games; very little coming back. Priced out according to the return.

Google flights will give some limited sense of pricing history for a defined itinerary and set of dates; or flag you with a price in a zone you set- not complete transparency but can give some insight into day of week low fares.

ced_lx

Same boat here but from YUL. Ended up booking paid YUL-NRT then award NRT-MEL with JAL . AC has really good fares in J for the new YUL-NRT flight, sub 4k CAD.

worldtraveller73

Actually, I was referring to travelling LAX/SFO/PDX-YVR-SYD; all on AC metal. Test it out, you may be surprised with the fare differences than versus UA with one stop via SFO/LAX. AC typically tries to poach a UA customer to grow international connecting traffic.

Adam Smith

There's no particular events driving this at the moment, it's just low/mid-$8000s pretty much any time. I've already been watching Google Flights.

Potentially a good option from YUL. From YYC, it costs almost as much to get to NRT as it does to go all the way to Australia.

That's exactly what I thought you were saying. And it makes no difference. AC wants low/mid-$8000s for things like SFO-BNE, PDX-SYD, LAX-MEL (connecting via YVR). Maybe $200-300 cheaper, but that doesn't pay for the positioning flights, let alone compensate for the substantial extra time.