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Astonishing £1,250 business class flights to Australia from Dublin, to early 2023

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The Star Alliance airlines have, for no obvious reason, launched an astonishing fare sale out of Dublin to Australia.

How cheap? We’re talking:

  • Adelaide – €1,450 return (£1,210)
  • Brisbane – €1,500 return (£1,250)
  • Melbourne – €1,450 return (£1,210)
  • Sydney – €1,500 return (£1,250)

You can book on the Lufthansa website here.

For clarity …. these are Business Class, return, tickets, flying with sensible airlines – in most cases:

  • Lufthansa
  • SWISS
  • Singapore Airlines

Travel dates run through to early February 2023.

The minimum stay is six days, the maximum stay is three months.

Clearly you won’t have totally free choice of dates, but the deals are there.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there is an easy way to build in stopovers. You may be able to do it via trial and error but it won’t be easy because only specific flights will be valid for this fare.

In terms of covid cover, you have some risk. Lufthansa will rebook you, free of charge, but you will be on the hook for the fare difference. Once this offer is over, a typical fare might be €4,000 – and you’d be on the hook for the difference.

You may want to consider paying a little more to book with more certainty. Pay an extra €95 each way and you can cancel the full trip for a refund for a €250 penalty.

Where to credit your flights

SWISS and Lufthansa are both part of the Miles & More loyalty scheme, although you can of course credit your flight to any other Star Alliance programme.

You’d earn around 21,000 miles in most schemes, based on booking class ‘P’. The website wheretocredit.com can give you detailed numbers.

How to book

The easiest place to book is the Lufthansa website here.

If you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX fees (as you will be paying in Euro), your best option to maximise your miles when paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.  Our review of Amex Gold is here.

In theory this offer runs until 7th March but that won’t happen – these seats will disappear very quickly.

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How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)

None of the Star Alliance airlines currently have a UK credit card.

There is, however, still a way to earn Star Alliance miles from a UK credit card. 

The route is via Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty points convert to over 40 airlines at the rate of 3:1.

The best way to earn Marriott Bonvoy points is via the official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. It comes with 20,000 points for signing up and 2 points for every £1 you spend. At 2 Bonvoy points per £1, you are earning (at 3:1) 0.66 airline miles per £1 spent on the card.

There is a preferential conversion rate to United Airlines – which is a Star Alliance member – of 2 : 1 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

The Star Alliance members which are Marriott Bonvoy transfer partners are: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points for signing up and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

Category

Lufthansa and Miles & More

Comments (120)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Phillip says:
    15 Feb15 February 05:45

    Great deals. Sadly for my dates the Swiss options are not available. Only LH. Not as keen!

    • Amy C says:
      15 Feb15 February 07:01

      Really not familiar with either airline. Are LH considerably more cheap than Swiss?

      • Rob says:
        15 Feb15 February 07:46

        Same airline, two brand names.

        • ChrisC says:
          15 Feb15 February 08:26

          Eh?

          LX is a separate company within the LH group.

          Similar arrangement as IAG. You wouldn’t say IB and BA are the same airline would you?

          • Andrew J says:
            15 Feb15 February 08:33

            Indeed, and they offer very different inflight products – just owned by the same conglomerate. Not sure why Rob said they are the same airline, as you say Chris, BA and IB aren’t the same airline.

          • Rob says:
            15 Feb15 February 09:03

            Let me rephrase. You won’t find one cheaper than the other (the original question) because they are sold on a metal neutral basis. In theory London – Zurich – XXXX will be the same as London – Frankfurt – XXXX.

      • Amy C says:
        15 Feb15 February 07:55

        Not sure why I wrote cheap, I meant crap.

  • Iain says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:34

    Think that they’ve alredy gone!
    Dublin to Perth Albeit with the refund option out mid Jan back feb came in at 8,500 Euros 🙁

  • Andrew J says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:34

    This Sydney flights are also coming up within Thai. The downside of all of these deals is that you’re adding 2 stops to a normal London to Australia 1 stop journey (unless you live in Dublin).

    • Harry T says:
      15 Feb15 February 08:30

      The advantage being it’s less than half the price of flying from London…

  • Lou says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:38

    Is it me being really picky? Amazing fare, just had a look, and saw that the longest leg is going to be on a 777/747 and I was like ‘nah’. I find them way too noisy to sleep properly

    • Andrew J says:
      15 Feb15 February 07:50

      If it’s the 747-800 which LH operate then it’ll be quieter – they aren’t like the old bone shaker 747-400s which BA had. Agree 777s aren’t great.

    • Louie says:
      15 Feb15 February 09:15

      Wouldn’t cross my mind to nitpick which aircraft was used, I just want a business class seat. Then again I don’t really like quiet planes because then you can hear all the snoring and farting which are masked by aircraft noise – which I actually find quite comforting – in the noisier planes.

  • Geoggy says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:46

    Not just you being picky. But it’s not the type of metal for me but all those legs required and getting to Dublin. CBA. Rather wait for a Qatar sale

    • Louie says:
      15 Feb15 February 09:17

      Ex-EU? Thereby saving one leg each way? And probably costing £1k more? Each to his own.

  • Paul says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:21

    Great deal for sure (see other comments about BA reward fares). Managed to get open jaw via SIN to Adelaide back from Perth in Oct/Nov. Thanks for heads up.

    The level of effort was quite high. GF constantly returning “your flights have gone up since the last time we checked”.

    Personal view but LX in J is way better than LH so via ZRH we go. So ended up painfully on the Swiss site going back and forth through the dates looking for SIN connection (some to MEL via BKK were on Jetstar).

  • Damien says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:29

    The “Business Basic Plus” is 90 Euro more, but allows a 250 Euro cancellation fee. But the prices look like they’re by leg. Is the cancellation fee by leg also. I mean, would a full trip’s coverage cost 180 euro (2 legs) and cost 500 euro to fully cancel?

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 09:00

      Fair point. I honestly don’t know. You rarely see cancellation fees by leg.

      • Damien says:
        15 Feb15 February 09:31

        Other question. Is there any way to book avios flight from Sydney to Hamilton Island (HTI)? BA site doesn’t recognise the airport code, but I know Qantas does have flights that go there.

        • Louie says:
          15 Feb15 February 10:33

          The BA website doesn’t have a dropdown for HTI but it does recognise it. Just put in HTI and carry on. Availability seems quite spotty – better in business for the dates I looked at (16,500 + £27.90 out and the same back for business).

          • Louie says:
            15 Feb15 February 10:37

            Or 9,000 Avios + £27.90 in economy.

          • Louie says:
            15 Feb15 February 11:40

            Meant to add, if you don’t already know, QF has a proper short haul business class product, none of this economy with the middle seat blocked rubbish you get on BA. Quite a treat and definitely worth an extra 15,000 Avios return in my mind.

          • Damien says:
            16 Feb16 February 09:16

            Thanks. Yeah got it working. Decided to go for the Biz option

      • Thywillbedone says:
        15 Feb15 February 09:40

        I booked a TAP fare in J last year LON-LIS-CUN return which had a similar size cancellation fee per passenger per leg. By the grace of God I managed to cancel with zero cancellation fees due to what can only have been an error by the agent handling it…

  • Gordon says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:57

    With these fares and BA asking office staff and pilots to work as flight attendants as they are so short staffed, I think Sean Doyle has a problem….

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