Setting Up Cheap Tickets to Australia & New Zealand

By Don Nadeau, on May 1, 2009, in Airfares, Travel

With cheap airfares and excellent U.S. dollar exchange rates, this year has turned into a wonderful time to visit Australia and New Zealand.

The techniques found on this post help get you the cheapest fare. Although we use Sydney examples here, these tips work for both Australia and New Zealand.

Check local & regional airports

First, do as you normally do. Check fares from your most convenient airport. Then research several other airports in your general area. Just because airports are in the same part of the country doesn’t mean they offer the same fares.

Use websites with huge buying power like Expedia and Priceline.com (which doesn’t charge booking fees on regular airfares). These often work especially well when you’ve missed ticketing deadlines on airline sites or when airlines want to fill empty seats at prices below what they offer on their websites.

Also check a site like Kayak.com, but make sure all service charges and delivery fees are included in the comparison prices you’ll see.

Check most competitive portion of route

Next, you’ll want to check the most competitive portion of the route. That is Los Angeles to Sydney (or LAX to Auckland or Brisbane or Melbourne if these are where you’re heading).

For this portion, include Qantas in your search, as it tells you which days have the fewest people booked and thus the lowest fares, information that may be applicable to other airlines.

On the Qantas site, type in the dates you most want to travel to and from Sydney. When the price page comes up, look for “View lowest prices around this date” and click on it. This shows you how much, if anything, you’ll save by changing your dates. The fare differences can be astonishing.

Because most people enjoy flying it, Qantas may not be your least expensive choice. By July, Delta, Qantas, United, and V Australia (Virgin) all will be flying nonstop to Sydney. Moreover, both Air New Zealand and Air Pacific (the Fijian airline) offer convenient connections.

Besides these, American and Northwest “code share” (put their flight numbers on other airlines’ flights) and may have different fares.

Especially, if you’ve missed ticketing deadlines, use sites like Priceline to check prices on the LAX to Sydney route. Airlines use third party sites to fill empty seats with prices lower than on their own websites.

I also check Travelocity. On popular routes like this, it like Qantas allows you to see when lowest fares are offered over a range of dates. Just use its “Flexible Dates” function, instead of typing in specific dates.

Consider using two tickets, but know the dangers

Now you know the difference in price between buying a ticket from your closest airports and buying one starting your trip in Los Angeles.

If this difference is substantial, you may wish to consider buying a separate ticket on an airline like Southwest to Los Angeles.

However—this is very important—using separate tickets creates risk when you want to connect on the same day.

Southwest or JetBlue or whatever airline you use won’t be responsible if you miss your connection at LAX. And your trans-Pacific airline may show no pity if you do not check in on time. On trans-Pacific routes, the financial risk becomes so great that we do not recommend same day connections when traveling on two tickets.

Instead, consider staying at least overnight in Los Angeles if the price differential makes this worthwhile.

Even if you’re using one ticket for your entire trip, play it safe. As mentioned in a previous post, although some airlines permit a 90-minute connection to a flight going to Australia or New Zealand, this is quite risky. Miss your connection in Los Angeles or San Francisco, and you’ll find that the next flights leave late next evening, nearly a 24-hour wait and usually at your own expense.

Pad your connections on a major trip like this. Choose a connection that’s three hours or even more.

And, if you want to spend some time in California (LAX sits near Santa Monica Beach, San Francisco International has a convenient rail connection to downtown), many airlines allow you to stopover on an international trip up to just less than 24 hours, without having to pay extra. You may appreciate not flying on such a long trip all at once.

Next post: Including both Australia and New Zealand on your trip at a low price. The cheapest fares to Australia do not normally allow stopovers in New Zealand, but that won’t stop us!