Next Years Prices
 

This may seem a silly thread from a very new member, but I always thought it was cheaper to book early.
My daughter in Zurich rang me tonight to ask if I could visit her in May next year. I had no immediate objection to this and after she'd hung up I went to the Emirates site & had a look at a 6 week trip in May/June in Business Class for Melb/Zurich & Melb/London.
I was appalled!! The London price was nearly AUST$ 13,500 and the Zurich was $13,150. Considering that I'm flying in 2 weeks to Zurich (in Business) for $6,100 I find this hard to take.
I also checked with Jetabroad & Webjet and there are quite a few options available from other airlines for less than $7000.
So, what do I do??
Wait & hope for further promotional fares from Emirates closer to the date I need to fly, or say to hell with it and book a Cathay/Swiss deal at less than $6,500.
My current trip will take me into Silver & I was looking forward to modestly growing my status (being a self funded retired gent) while visiting my daughter (& her family). But I have to say that if Emirates are not going to allow me to book at realistic rates in advance then I may well find another carrier.
Thoughts from older, wiser members would be appreciated
Dave

what you can get as alternatives, i see no reason why you'd give your business to EK. seems like more and more customers are leaving EK these days either due to increase fares or piss poor service.

pretty soon my company will start forcing us to fly non-EK flights b/c the cost differential is too great.

Its already started, all flights within the GCC are on the lowest fare possible. Been a while since I've been on an EK flight in the GCC. And as far as J fares are concerned, this summer looks like a non-EK summer for me. Flying out tomorrow , and was pleasantly surprised to discover that work put me back on SQ... recession must be over ^ :D

[Dans6362;12146817] the prices may fall, but I dont expect them to reach this summers lows.Oils gonna go up and people will forget the recession and start spending again. Book something if you really must but check the cancellation policy just in case EK reduces the fares.

First of all, I don't think you will find many members on these forums (or on this website) that book their tickets 10 months in advance. In my opinion that's just outrageous!!! You might need to book at least 6 months in advance if you want any decent chance to book a reward with some of the other FFPs (like AFKL Flying Blue), but it just seems weird to book a fully paid C-tkt 10 months in advance. Whichever the airline you want to fly on.

Otherwise, as far as the fares/prices in the next cple of months is concerned, I think this will depend greatly on what happens with the whole swine flu situation. I am in Europe right now, and in the last couple of days I have been able to see for myself how many companies have now started to prepare for a VERY SERIOUS and VERY CONTRACTED pandemic: many people will get sick in very short periods of time, in very short successive waves.

Therefore a lot of companies have begun to put all further holiday planning on hold (no more leave) with severe limitations to any planned business trips, especially between the END OF AUGUST and the END OF OCTOBER. Some people have even been forced to cancel their already booked holidays. I am talking about big companies, hospitals, government institutions in the BeNeLux, France, Germany and the U.K. Also, contingencies are being drawn up where staff will replace each other, or where whole sections and departments will simply close shop for a couple of days or even weeks, with the remaining (fit and healthy) managers and workers staying on site, trying to fill in for the sick ones. It's a major economic/logistical/managerial challenge, and business travel and annual holidays will be one of the first things to be sacrificed. And then I am not even talking about any deadly and/or resistant mutations of the H1N1 virus.

Anyway: a lot of holiday and business related traveling (especially long haul) will be canceled. It is happening already... (!).

Also, any people that have yet to become sick will be far less inclined to book tickets, or to go on an intercontinental trip abroad.

Plus we all know how the health care system in some countries is really deficient.

And then there is the whole question of the vaccination campaigns,... and the number of doses required(!).

I believe that - in case some of the present (official) swine flu predictions come true - we will see many of the economy cabins flying virtually empty. Especially on long haul flights. Especially between SEP09-APR10.

On the other hand, on a higher level it's probably gonna be all hands on deck as well, with senior managers flying around, trying to stop gap some of the most pressing problems... filling the front cabins of the planes. Plus they are probably going to want to sit far away, isolated with a bit of distance between themselves and between them and the crew,... at least with nobody else seated next to them.

My prediction:

• Look forward to many scheduled and unscheduled flight cancellations.
  
• Look forward to many booking cancellations and other involuntary (re)bookings.
  
• Look forward to a further increase in the fares for C and F.
  
• Look forward to a new decrease in the fares for Y.

.

well, regarding the 10 months in advance, I did warn you all I was a very new member..:D
But seriously, it probably comes from having greater familiarity with point to point cruising where the best cabins (& early bird prices) are to be had by booking early. I guess there's some attitude adjusting necessary.
I would beg to disagree with the pessimistic view on Swine Fever. Melbourne has been dubbed (at least by our media) as the "Swine Fever Capital of the World" due to a few (well publicised) deaths. But despite media beatups, it's proved to be a 24 hour sensation and there is little evidence of large scale disruption in large (or small) companies, and only a moderate level of complaints from the tourism area about a falloff in overseas tourists. So I see it as a short, sharp shock to be followed by a reasonably rapid return to normality.
But I do like the idea of booking with Cathay Pacific now (as long as I can cancel at a later date) & then waiting to see what Emirates do. I will admit to being surprised that they are prepared to let so many other 4 & 5 star airlines undercut them by many 1000's of dollars.
Thanks for the responses
Dave

BFAABAA, your posts are increasingly interesting.

I disagree with your predictions and believe that the explanation you gave, is only a single perspective. There are several factors that drive air fares changes, namely:
- Market share and competition
- Demand
- Baseline cost
- many other factors (for example aspirations to gain new market share)

The Swine Flu episode is having an effect on all industries ( it may be a positive one because it's sort of dampening the recovery of economies, and hence softening increase in oil prices). But to say that this particular factor will determine airfares increases or decreases is far from being realistic.

We Australians, pay the highest fares to get out, or on average pay higher fares than if were to be departing from the destination country (there are exceptions of course, depending on specific markets and periods of demand etc).
The problem is that airlines recognise that Australians can be ripped off without much hassle, and so you see the airfares falling within a hidden gentlemen's agreement depending on destinations.

13.5k in Business is an absolute rip off. I could buy 4 First Class tickets with Emirates for the same price that I would have to pay if I chose to depart from Australia to the same origin I am departing from; and still have almost zero restrictions on cancellations and zero penalties as opposed to Australian origined tickets (couple of hundreds to cancel/refund, and to re-book/revalidate).

Dans6362, you could fly QF to Jakarta, and get a much cheaper Business class Emirates ticket return to Zurich for about 4.2kAUD.
You could also try the Philippine where the fare is about 3.7kAUD. You could get the same fare from Malaysia too.

I suppose you have enough QF points to take a return trip to MNL or JKT to catch your ticket with EK
On the way back you could get a return airfare (really cheap) from MNL or JKT if you had bought one way using the QF points.

Hope this helps. I know this sucks.

Well, we'll see what happens come September. I sincerely hope it's a false alarm and a heap of scaremongering, although I remain very pessimistic as far as the travel market is concerned... Some of the airlines will suffer really hard because of this: if not operationally, then at least commercially.

I think the problem here is the Australian government: it would be really easy for them to fix this, but instead they prefer to be far too protectionist of QF and DJ... Maybe you should write them a letter and tell them to open up the market to more competition, which can only be good for the overall population and for Australian businesses. I know SQ has been trying to break into the market for years: e.g. SYD-LAX, SYD-SFO, SYD-NRT,... but to no avail. You might say that they are only "cherry picking", but it's not as if QF is offering direct flights from Hobart to SIN, is it??

Oz is like a continent, it's somewhere close to the edge of the map, on the road to nowhere... I've lived there around 2000-2001 and at the time I thought it was just ridiculous to see how some markets like Oz-NZ, Oz-JP, and Oz-US had fallen victim to price rigging and market manipulation, and how the Oz govt. failed (refused??) to do anything about it. This was b4 the collapse of AN (which had considerable international operations), and b4 the deployment of EKs massive operation down under...

Anyway, I don't think things have changed that much, and I really believe the real culprit here are QF, DJ/SRB and their cronies in charge of the Australian govt., especially the previous one (John Howard's).

I am of a different view than yourself: I think you should praise yourselves lucky to have an airline like EK serving your country the way they do... at least there is increased competition on some of the routes.

Question remains, why would you want to book so early??? Especially for a flexible tkt...

Me thinks EK isn't really interested in selling this tkt anyways, preferring to keep their hands free in case they want to mess around with the flight for which they quoted this fare... It could be that they are legally obliged to publish a fare (e.g. bilateral air services agreement), or contractually as part with their commercial relationship with some of the corporate accounts, or CRSs or companies like AMEX. Who knows...

Anyway, it's pretty clear that by setting this price, EK are kinda trying to chase this pax away: they will only take his money if there is a lot of it. This is a pretty common occurence, especially if the tkt is fully reimbursable (to prevent abuse, fraud, etc.). I have seen many other airlines do this. The message is clear: at this time we're not (yet) interested, please take your business elsewhere.

You will have to agree with me however, that this example is NOT illustrative of EK's overall pricing policies. It's just an example of a fully priced C-class tkt on any of the 1-stop kangeroo-routes.

.

Let's wait and see :)


Agree. I have actually spoken to someone in the Senate a while ago about this issue. The whole problem is centred around protecting QF's interests. QF sees its AU originating pax as cash cows. The Gov. sees QF as as a tax cash cow (for revenue), and as a major employer in the industry for the populous (for image).
One can argue though that the protectionism here is no where near that of Canada and Air Canada.
Well, increased competition does not always mean better prices for the consumers. It sometimes does the opposite especially when all major market players engage in price fixing and I think this is evident if we look back at the premium airfares ex-Aus.
I remember getting a return F trip on GF for 4200AUD (2001), followed by EK in 2002 (5400AUD), then 5800AUD in 2004.
Today the same trip would cost 13k with EK, that's more than double although they are competing with EY, QR (on the way), and MH and many many others.
You might argue with fuel prices, but let's face it they have also increased capacity by several folds (and hence cost per unit had fallen dramatically) whereas fuel has what, quadrupled at the highest end?
Besides, we all know that airlines price their fares according to market first, and cost last. Because if they looked at cost and were considerate, we would be flying first class for less than $2k.

Anyways, I do agree the government is part to blame. You know I might just write a letter about that to a local MP.

edy4eva you are a gem!
It had never entered my head to explore prices from Indonesia & the Philipines.
Your assumption was correct. I have a lot of Qantas points which I haven't thought about using since I discovered the joys of Emirates so the initial flight will not be a problem. Thank you very much!!
On a broader scale,
BFAABAA
I thought I explained my rationale for the early booking in my followup post. As I also said, I probably need some attitude readjustment regarding this. But your point about Emirates chasing me away is pretty valid. I'm not sure that I can totally commit to your "blame the Government" thesis though. And your suggestion to "write them a letter and tell them to open up the market to more competition" is a bit ingenuous. Neither the current nor previous governments have had any interest in responding to the citizens who elected them! See edy4eva's comments on Qantas as a cash cow!!
And finally, thank you all for your informative & incisive responses. They are really appreciated

Dave

No worries mate. It's a pleasure to try and beat the system which is set to burn holes in our pockets.

If you want to stick with EK for most of the way, I forgot to mention the option to fly to SIN on EK (MEL-SIN return in J about 3.5k) then fly SIN-DXB-ZRH on another ticket (5k in J approx), or take a short hop (SIN-KUL) for about $200 and catch the 3.5k fare from KUL.

This may induce many stop overs, but think of it as getting best value for your money (and getting to tour around a bit).

Finally but most importantly, if you fancy a trip to Auckland, you could pick up a AKL-DXB-ZRH round trip fare for 9500NZD (7.6AUD) which is very similar to what you've paid now.
If I were you I would go to NZ, since with that fare you could catch the A380 via Sydney which is a much better J than the 773 or the dreadful A340 currently used on MEL route.

You could add stopovers on this fare as indicated and keep the final SYDorMEL-AKL leg for a later date as indicated:
4 PERMITTED LIMITED TO 2 FREE AND 2 AT NZD 150.00 EACH. 1 FREE IN SYD INBOUND 1 FREE AT ANY OTHER POINT 2 AT NZD 150.00 EACH. NOTE - PERMITTED AT ANY TRANSFER POINT AS PER ATTACHED ROUTE MAP.
All the best!

Add BKK & HKG to this list

BKK and especially HKG fares are steeper than KUL, JKT and MNL.
HKG is about 5000USD to ZRH in J. BKK is about 3500USD.

Considering that's almost half way to Europe, Dans6362 is better off going from NZ.

Dans6362, I have seen some amazing fares pop out of Emirates booking engine as soon as you start exploring multi-leg itineraries. For instance, got to ZRH, then to DXB for a bit, then to KUL for a bit, then home. I have no idea if this works for your needs, or on your route, but since you have time on your hands you should have a good play around with it.