Best options PER-LHR

[shandee]

Hello all,

Brand new here but you all seem like incredibly clever people, so thought I'd ask your advice on a bit of a travel dilemma we are having! My partner and I are heading to the UK in May next year, and really need to sort flights out before availability starts to get a bit scarce. We've been uncertain and hesitant to book anything yet because of the whole Qantas/Emirates thing, and still have no idea how that's going to impact us.

Firstly, my partner is a Platinum FF, so flying Qantas would make a lot of sense in terms of baggage allowance, lounge access, etc. Initially the idea was to purchase Economy fare tickets and upgrade them to Business, on at least one of the legs (probably the return). Unfortunately we've since discovered that Qantas sale fares aren't upgradable.

So currently we are tossing up a few options:

1) Buy an upgradable direct Qantas economy fare (~$2400) and upgrade to business. Also, as it's not guaranteed, what's the likelihood of getting an upgrade with a Discount Economy fare and Platinum status?

2) Fly via Hong Kong, by buying a return ticket PER to HKG and a seperate return ticket from HKG to LHR. (~$1300-1400). Fly economy for the first portion and upgrade the second (and longer) leg. Benefits of possible stopover in Hong Kong (awesome) one way, downside of taking an extra 8 hours each way (jetlag, ouch). However I'm getting uncertain about this option as I have no idea what the status of Qantas is going to be like through Asia come May. Previously when I looked, it was all available via Qantas, wheras now the HK - London leg is operated half by Cathay and half by a BA codeshare. Will the codeshare still be operational by then? Will this even be upgradable? Without a business upgrade this route would just be too long, personally!

3) With all the confusion about Emirates, we wondered if we might be able to buy a flight through Emirates instead (their flights are $1600 and supposedly upgradable with their FF program), as they're supposed to be having reciprocal FF programs, but not knowing the details, we don't want to book something and then have it not be the case.

When other decent airlines (Qatar) are doing direct flights from around $1400, and heck, even Qantas itself's base sale fares are only about $1500 at the moment, it's hard to justify spending an extra $1000 (and a LOT of FF points) for a potential business upgrade. Especially when you have no idea what time your flight is gonna be changed to, or where it'll stop over or anything...

So anyway, any suggestions? Is there another option I haven't considered here, or some tricky combination of fares and points that could work?

Thanks!

 

[mannej]

May next year you will only be able to upgrade PER-SIN as SIN-LHR will be on BA.

If you had the points, have you looked at flying CX via HKG?

Unless you are flying QF, you can't use QF points to upgrade on other OW airlines. If you are looking at points, I would get a move along as flights for May next year may be in scarce demand already

Sent from AFF Mobile Edition

 

[MYT105]

If you want to fly QF most of the way what about Perth - Singapore - Frankfurt - London, it is QF to Frankfurt in May, for around $1900.

Or Perth - Sydney - London - Frankfurt(BA) - Singapore - Perth on QF except as noted for around $1800.

These are assuming Y travel.

You could also option in Melbourne instead of Sydney, the advantage of Sydney or Melbourne is it will be QF all the way to London, either through Dubai as currently scheduled or Singapore if they don't get approval for the deal with EK.

If you want to use points it might also be worth searching from Sydney or Melbourne, as there are more direct options available.

 

[grussellt]

Have you thought of buying AA miles in the current promotion and using 60,000 each (about $1200 one-way) for either inbound or outbound leg (see under American Airlines threads). There is still availability in J for PER-LHR via HKG if you are able to do an overnight stopover. There will also be other choice but I wouldn't wait too long to book.