“The hens tooth” (Flights to Australia)

[NotTheRealRob]

Hi

I know historically it’s have been virtually impossible to get reward flights to Australia and I was hoping with the changes to the companion voucher things might get easier but unless I’m doing something wrong they have no!
Singapore looks pretty low on reward availability in general too.

So my question is… is there a destination that does a good job of breaking the back of the trip to Australia that it easier to get reward availability for then we could look at paying cash for the remainder of the trip.

Any ideas appreciated

Rob

[Richie]

It really depends on how time rich you are and where in Australia you want to get to.

[NotTheRealRob]

Richie wrote:

It really depends on how time rich you are and where in Australia you want to get to.

Time isn’t a major issue ideally thinking one stop in either direction. But stay over a couple of nights to experience the stop over and also have time for delays etc. would rather it on one ticket but realise that’s not really possible.

Probably Sydney and drive North as we have friends just north of Brisbane

[PassportStampCollector]

It’s a little tricky until Hong Kong or Japan open to give other Asia options. Two potential choices:

Middle East gives plenty of onward opportunities but is obviously shorter from the UK than the Middle East to Australia flight.

Or you could go the long way round and go West. The US carriers and Qantas all have a range of flights from San Francisco and LA to Australia. I think Qantas have restarted the LA to Brisbane flight so could be possible to do an open jaw with Brisbane and Sydney. Haven’t looked at how expensive that is mind you.

[VerdantBacon]

We fly back to Australia twice a year, if we can’t get reward availability all the way to Aus on BA, we will usually go SIN, TYO or HKG on BA then use points/cash on another carrier to get the rest of the way.
Last two times we’ve gone back it’s been EK, this is far superior to BA but also a little bit more difficult to earn the points

[SamG]

Whenever I’ve looked into it the cash tickets from the stopover point make it overall a bad deal vs an ex-EU – Oslo used to be particularly good starting point

Hopefully Singapore will get a bit easier once the 2 daily BA flights are back. One option from there is ScootPlus – particularly for a day flight it’s pretty decent. Cash fares from there to Aus are very high at the moment but should settle down as capacity returns and demand calms a bit!

[AndrewF]

How about SCL – hope across to Oz from there on LATAN (QF flight code available, looks as it goes via AKL)? A bit more indirect but imagine SCL would be very interesting.

[JDB]

It’s not exactly a ‘hop’ from SCL to SYD (direct) – c. 11,000km. London to Sydney is around 17,000km and London to Santiago, around 11,000km. While Chile is a fantastic country to visit, Santiago itself is one of the least interesting South American cities to visit.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 8 months ago by .

[memesweeper]

Open Jaw via LA and back via Tokyo is also an option once Japan reopens.

If you have Amex MRs in abundance then United have options for connecting via North America in addition to AA and Qantas. flight connections dot com is great for this kind of route planning.

[BuildBackBetter]

If you have Amex MRs in abundance, stopover in Singapore using Singapore Airlines is unbeatable in terms of value, convenience and flying time. Pay $100 for a stopover that also reduces the miles required. Combine that with an incredible hard and soft product. You don’t even have to stay at SIN. You can fly to Bali or Thailand for a break.

[memesweeper]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

If you have Amex MRs in abundance, stopover in Singapore using Singapore Airlines is unbeatable in terms of value, convenience and flying time. Pay $100 for a stopover that also reduces the miles required. Combine that with an incredible hard and soft product. You don’t even have to stay at SIN. You can fly to Bali or Thailand for a break.

Given the MR to Kris exchange rate that’ll be expensive in points terms. But you’re right, a good product and probably the fastest route.

Incidentally, if you plan something involving BA + companion and onwards with JAL/AA/Qantas you might want to price it up as a “multi carrier” award without the companion voucher (or companion on first leg only). It could be cheaper in mileage terms than multiple award bookings. @Rob has an article on this rare booking type.