Trying to get to Sydney for a friends wedding...
 

anyone have any ideas for relatively cheap way to get down under sometime in march. need to be there march 16. everything else is flexible. lideally leaving from nyc. or lax or sfo.

thanks so much.

brett

I don't think there's a such thing as a really cheap way to get to SYD. Especially on such short notice - the cheapest you'll be able to find will be minimum 2 grand most likely. Check award availability if you've got the miles. You may be able to do a LAX-BKK and a BKK-SYD ticket for a little less than a LAX-SYD - saving a couple of hundred bucks.

Priceline, baby!

Hotwire shows about $1600, but that many depend on what dates you select. United shows about the same price from NYC.

If you're really sure of your dates Priceline might work, otherwise you might want to check a consolidator, or a tour company. I see lots of $1000 prices for Aussie travel. Sunday newspapers usually have a fair amount of listings.

UA was running a $759Rt internet fare from SFO this week, but it was probably only for this coming week. You might keep an eye on those if you can plan last minute (and if price is going to make a difference). Of course, no guarantee they'll offer it again, either.

I don't know what dates you're checking, but punching in LAX-SYD 3/11 - 3/18 into Expedia yields lots of results at $1,100 on NZ, QF or UA.

Seems quite reasonable.

qantasusa.com has a $1120 fare on the nonstop flight.

A UA consolidator tkt should cost around $859+ outta LAX and $1,158+ outta JFK, give or take. YM and fare MV slightly, depending on the mark-up of the travel agency you select. And UA miles are earned in most cases.

Guess I was completely wrong! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I checked expedia for

leave LAX 3/12 evening
leave SYD 3/21 morning/afternoon

I see that Air New Zealand has a fare for $1,106. That is a pretty good fare. And though Qantas offers a very similar fare, I would steer clear of Qantas because they will only give you 50% of AAdvantage miles flown (it's a V fare). I assume that Air New Zealand will give you 100% of miles flown (it's a T fare), but I would call United and double check. United's website is equivocal about this:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,,1181,00.html

As this is more about help finding a fare for a specific purpose, and not actually related to a Mileage Run, I'm moving it to the TravelBuzz! forum. Please continue to follow it there.

For a discussion of why this thread has been moved, please see this post regarding appropriate content for the forum.

To the original poster, please note that you did absolutely nothing wrong per se, it's simply a question of steering posts to the appropriate location within a sometimes-confusing maze within FlyerTalk. Welcome aboard!

Thanks,

Dave, a.k.a. dmfriedman
Moderator, Mileage Run

Try this . $1,199.00 from the West Coast or $1,399.00 from the East Coast to Australia.