DFW-Perth help
 

I have two friends with a lot of AA miles and a lot of Amex MR points.

They want to travel DFW-Perth before Christmas and return after Christmas and are actually pretty flexible with their dates. They would like to travel business or FC.

They are not having good luck with availability (AA/Qantas/Sydney).

What suggestions do you have as far as checking for routing and partners that may have better availability?

Trans-Pacific availability on QANTAS is usually limited so they might look at doing what I've done in the past when flying to Perth by taking Cathay Pacific through Hong Kong on a routing of; DFW-(LAX or SFO or YVR)-HKG-PER.

It's a longer trip (with an early morning arrival and late evening departure at HKG) but you can make that into lemonade by spending the day playing tourist or shopping.

(edited to correct spelling)



[This message has been edited by greggwiggins (edited 09-23-2002).]

You can also transfer Amex to CO to Amtrak to UA all at 1:1 which gives you some more options but I have no idea what the time frame for those transfers would be.

Qantas is supposed to be starting DFW-Auckland, NZ nonstop service with continuing service to Australia late this fall (no actual start date announced yet). If that happens as expected and your friends still don't have firm plans, they could try calling in quickly after the announcement to see if any seats are available.

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that one. There's still no official announcement about the route, and I suspect they will wait until they have more than one 744LR on active service before they commence that route.

To get here prior to xmas and depart after (a challenge this close to the date, as this time is quite popular), they might try the CX routing advised above, or arriving in Australia via MEL or BNE.

Another option would be to get a OW around the world award ticket, going via JFL-LHR-SIN or BKK to Australia, then back home through the east coast to LAX.

Probably won't cost much more in terms of points if they're flying J or F.

A good plan, but unless you have QF Platinum status, precisely zero seats are available for F award inventory (from mid-December to mid-January) for trans-Pacific travel. I doubt QF will deviate from this policy, even for a new flight. It if just not possible to travel for free during Christmas on this route using EXP status. I've solved the problem (by earning QF Platinum after I had EXP). Or get them to fly out in March instead (Perth is still nice, some would say nicer than in December).

Great advice! In case you are planning to do this, it costs between double and triple in AAdvantage points to use a Oneworld RTW routing instead of QF or CX from US to Australia. So as long as "much more" is defined as less than 300% it is true. It does illustrate the power of the AA plan (very cheap awards for some long flights if they happen to fall within a threshold), some flights are very cheap because of the anomalous zone boundaries (JFK-PER is a good example).

I agree with above posts. I am actually doing the SYD-HKG-LAX routing on CX in the beginning of March. Could NOT get QF award at that time

Or, they might try flying AA to SCL, and trying Lan Chile to AKL and on SYD.