BNE fly in SYD fly out, bulk purchase recommendations

[beroccaboy]

Opening the board to experiences / recommendations / opinions for purchasing approximate 50 flights in advance, say six - nine months of weekly flights FRI night SYD to BNE and Sunday night BNE to SYD from December 2015 onwards each weekend except for school holidays when my wife can fly from BNE to be with me in SYD. I read some reference to JohnK but couldn't find the source.

So about me ... I've been doing the BNE to SYD work thing for the last two years. Until recently work had been paying VA + accommodation. April 2015, new client, new contract - not enough margin for my company to pay my fly-in fly-out so they asked me to relocate to SYD but I cannot for personal reasons. I am now paying weekly flights out of my own pocket FRI night back to BNE and SUN night back to SYD; MON mornings were just too tiring. It's a significant cost to me, but I am still earning more flying than if I took an equivalent BNE job; if anything I would consider looking for a higher paying SYD job. Ironically I quit my higher paying SYD job 4 years ago to take a position in BNE but there simply wasn't enough demand; it didn't work out as I had hoped. Two years after starting my BNE job, my BNE company started shipping me back to SYD. Plenty of work in SYD.

BTW, I asked ATO for a deduction but their view is it is my CHOICE to fly home for the weekend therefore not eligible for deduction.

Anyhow, I booked over 50 flights in advance from April 2015 until November 2015 with VA because I was already GOLD from previous work flights and they had an $89 special for over half of those flights to November 2015. Just last week I fell back to VA SILVER because of a six month lull in work / travel around this time last year. I asked VA for special consideration to stay GOLD given my advanced purchases but it was denied. So not GOLD again now until mid November 2015. I will be VA GOLD before December 2015, but would consider other airlines given that IMHO VA has failed to distinguish themselves from any other airline in any way except for price. Just today I booked my first non-VA flight ever for a weekend holiday to MLB, something I would never have considered before - in the past I would have been blindly loyal to VA and just have booked with VA from the VA web site without even considering the alternatives. For this most recent purchase I used a common web broker.

 

[eastwest101]

Welcome to the forum! Lots of questions raised but I would urge caution about booking flights too far ahead and having a lot of money tied up in non-refundable airfares if things change with your employer (or the nature of the work changing from SYD to somewhere else). From the sounds of it - it seems to me that your employer wants to have it both ways - having a BNE cost based person performing work in SYD without due consideration to the costs involved in having someone resident in SYD. I bet they are charging your clients SYD prices and paying you BNE wages. Guess whom pockets the difference. I understand you have your own good personal reasons to want to continue to spend weekends in BNE (probably something to do with wife/husband/partner and or family etc). I'd be interested to know who pays for your accommodation Mon-Fri in SYD, the client? Your employer or yourself?

Sounds like you are in a low profit margin business with doubtful continuity so don't over-extend yourself and talk it over with family and freinds to see if it passes the "sanity test".

On your specific question - if you are going to go ahead with it probably best to choose between Qantas or Virgin, because schedule changes from Jetstar or Tigerair could really screw your life around and its common to see the situation of sub-optimal alternatives being offered by LCCs that won't suit your travel patterns. Some people take the attitude of only booking TT or JQ flights when treating them as an aspirational goad of being a vague promise to fly you from A to B at some indeterminate point in the future plus or minus a few hours or days.

Some people on the forum have had a bit of luck using Entertainment Book vouchers to avoid VA credit card fees as per this thread:

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....tertainment-book-give-va-voucher-59114-3.html

And something similar with using prepaid Qantas vouchers to avoid credit card fees. With lots of bookings on reasonably cheap fares between BNE-SYD I would think that credit card fees are possibly your public enemy no.1 if its all coming out of your own pockets.

With that much flying I think its likely you'll be able to obtain either QG Gold or Virgin Velocity Gold status which will obviously give you lounge access. Add in a few extra flights and its conceivable to even get gold in both frequent flyer programs, but it will be the "old school" way of BIS (Bum In Seat) miles in Y class...

Anyway - people with way more experience than me on these forums so expect some good advice. Please stick around and let us know which way you decide to go!

Personally: I would have explored the "relocation option" to SYD if they were realistic about the difference in living costs between SYD and other parts of Australia.

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF beroccaboy!

I commute the other way.

Back in November I purchased most of the airfares I needed through to August 2015 as the price was too good to refuse. The holiday periods haven't been on special recently so I waited and waited and just managed to get some cheap deals to/from OOL. It only takes a couple of hours to get there by train and bus and it's free if I have worked in BNE through the week.

Now I am looking to book October-December airfares but the airfares are not so good from both airlines. May grab the next special even if it's not that great.

The airlines are trying to focus on January airfares which are poor in comparison to previous years.

This is the highest I have seen airfares since I started commuting in 2008. Qantas was $128 and briefly touched $133 before going down to $65 in 2011. I cannot afford to commute with current airfare levels. Hoping the fuel surcharge comes down as fuel has dropped since fuel surcharges were increased.

 

[medhead]

I currently fly ADL-SYD weekly.

eastwest101 has raised some good points about Sydney pay versus Brisbane pay. Something you will be best placed to investigate. Well done on having them pay for travel until now.

However, if they are asking you to move to sydney, then the arrangement is as if you are based in Sydney. Just that you personally choose to live in Brisbane. This is my arrangement as I started this job from the basis of it being Sydney based. As the ATO has advised travel between cities is considered to be a personal expense. Fortunately, my workplace has some flexibility in the working arrangement so that I work a compressed week, Monday to Thursday. This gives me the benefit of having Friday at home as my time, long weekend every week. Flexi time also gives me Easter every 10 weeks.

I would suggest exploring your employers flexibility in working arrangement. This would start from an in principle agreement to their proposal be Sydney based, but clearly stating that you will travel from Brisbane. They might have options for compressed working weeks, or periodic work from home/Brisbane office.

This later is important because there are certain exceptions to the ATO view of travel between work and home being a personal expense. This can change if you have different workplaces (say 2 workplaces one in Sydney and one in Brisbane). Another specific example outlined for work related travel is if you travel from your normal workplace, to an alternative workplace and then home (plus vice versa) - that travel is deductible. I'll leave that to you to interpret, or to seek tax advice. Needless to say, it is not the case that all travel will be 100% at your expense. It still only saves you the marginal tax rate but better than nothing.

On to your question. In my situation I'll say that yes buying flights in advance is do-able and can save money. This is for the case that you're buying the absolute cheapest flights, which I do. I find that the appropriate lead time is 5 to 9 months with Qantas, and 2 to 3 months with Virgin to get the best price. Book Easter, christmas eve 9 months in advance.
Having said that I am on the 6 am monday morning flight. It is popular and I may have to pay more than minimum. Flying back Thursday night I have a choice of 3 flights, 1 @ approx 7pm, 2 @ approx 8pm. 8pm flight is pretty easy to get cheaply.

You really need to know that you are going to fly at those times. Booking christmas for the cheap flight 9 to 12 months out locks you in big time. Gotta think about that before committing. Change fees will kill you if you have to change too many flights. So you will be locked in, that can really hurt at times. Missed parent teacher interviews for example. change fees have also gone up. Kevrosmith flys regularly to Sydney/Brisbane for work. He has said that flexi fares were cheaper with all the changes he was doing. Carefully consider that.

Yes, you risk losing that money if you change jobs. In reality, cancel, lose the fees and have money left to do some other flying might happen.

Having given the previous timeframes this year I'm booking flights no more than 2-3 months in advance. This means Qantas flights I need are rarely at the sale price, Virgin are still cheap but not the cheapest. I'm doing this because I want to hold my money for longer, and I'll pay for the opportunity cost of doing so. This year I've also got myself on extra external committees, so more tax deductions.

What does this mean in hard numbers? Obviously not relevant to Syd/Bne but gives an idea of relativity.

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Average cost[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Number of flights[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]2015 Qantas[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]$146[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]32[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]2015 Virgin[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]$137[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]18[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]2014 Qantas[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]$126[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]47[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]2014 Virgin[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]$103[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]35[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

When deciding to take this job I factored in points earning, and included taking award flight every X weeks. But that never really happened. I did 8 award flights last year (out of a nominal 100 flights) and have done 5 this year.

As mentioned there are savings to be had with credit card fees. 100 flights x$7.70= $770, that's 2.5 weeks worth of flights. Qantas gift vouchers are pretty good for flexibility and there are no credit card fees. for the last few years they've had a 10 points per $ promo on gift vouchers during December.

The 5% discount on Virgin gift vouchers has been mentioned. I've never really used them. When the average cost is $103, i didn't get too excited. But that would be -$5 and -$7.70, so an average closer to $90. I did however, use the promo discount codes usually about 8% of total fare.

This is all pretty general, JohnK does weekly flights Syd/Bne. He da man for specifics on that route.

If you find yourself in Sydney on a Wednesday night at a loose end, come to Trivia night for more tips on this stuff. Next one on 24 June. http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ents/sydney-trivia-nights-next-wed-61783.html

 

[beroccaboy]

Thank you for the welcome and thank you everyone for bringing these great experiences to my attention and great advice.

I haven't tried it myself but VA Travel Bank might also be a way to avoid credit card fees. I will absolutely check out vouchers and do some Google'ing on whether to bother with the insurance going forward - any experiences / opinions on that? Looks like rotating between VA and QF based on price is the experienced traveller option.

In response to some of the direct questions:

I pay everything; but IMHO it is a good experience opportunity - senior EA role with DevOps, Cloud and potentially some big data touch points. I would probably continue to travel even if the current job fell through - I am confident I would find another SYD job quickly. Having said that, the company has been good to date, carrying me for 6 months on full pay when there was no work in BNE; 6 months out of 4 years service is like 12.5% bonus. And, "yes" anchored in BNE. My wife is caring for her mother; mother won't move but that might change in the future. Wife's care is most certainly contributing to mother-in-law's longevity.

Also if it's worth anything, I have purchased insurance with the ticket.

Excellent point about LCC cancellation risk - "yes" I have heard those announcements while waiting for my VA flights; and "yes" I must concede this distinguishes VA and QF. Thank you again, I was considering TT or JQ but am now thinking I should stick with VA like I have been but now include QF in the mix and choose between them solely based on fare prices. The GOLD thing has lost its shine now given how fickle it is despite how frequently I fly. I used to only leverage GOLD for the lounge anyhow - I would arrive early and relax in the lounge. Without GOLD, I will simply go back to being a last minute check-in like I did in the old days before I was GOLD.

 

[horseman]

Don't forget, ATO may not be interested in deductions for your flights, but you are working away from home.

 

[medhead]

Don't forget, ATO may not be interested in deductions for your flights, but you are working away from home.

That's a good point. Living away from home allowance. Nice if you can get it. To the OP it is very important that you looking into this option and raise it with your employer. It can be really work for you, but needs to be set up in advance.

 

[beroccaboy]

That's a good point. Living away from home allowance. Nice if you can get it. To the OP it is very important that you looking into this option and raise it with your employer. It can be really work for you, but needs to be set up in advance.

Yeah I asked but my employer didn't want to do it and only employer can; not employee. Might have been different when I contractor with my own PTY LTD 4 years ago, but even then I am not 100% sure because it was classified as a "personal services" company.

 

[medhead]

Yeah I asked but my employer didn't want to do it and only employer can; not employee. Might have been different when I contractor with my own PTY LTD 4 years ago, but even then I am not 100% sure because it was classified as a "personal services" company.

Last time I looked at it, last year some time, the allowance could be taken before tax from your salary. Aside from some administrative work, that payroll should be able to do, it should cost the employer anything. There is a 2 year limit on it now as well.

 

[JohnK]

I haven't tried it myself but VA Travel Bank might also be a way to avoid credit card fees. I will absolutely check out vouchers and do some Google'ing on whether to bother with the insurance going forward - any experiences / opinions on that? Looks like rotating between VA and QF based on price is the experienced traveller option.

I have QBE insurance yearly travel policy purchased via Entertainment Book with 30% discount. I have not needed to claim. Comes in handy for rental vehicle excess.

 

[russ]

I commute the other way.

Have you two guys considered swapping? (either your jobs or families?)

 

[amaroo]

I commuted MCY-SYD-MCY weekly for 4 years - fully funded. The weekly airfare/accom/car/toll/parking came in >$1,800/wk ... big number to self fund.

 

[medhead]

I commuted MCY-SYD-MCY weekly for 4 years - fully funded. The weekly airfare/accom/car/toll/parking came in >$1,800/wk ... big number to self fund.

My ADL-SYD-ADL budget is a nominal $600 per week. Currently projected at $644 for 2015. Pervious years were $603, $607, $598, $583 and $597. Before any deductions. If you were self funded I imagined you might have been a bit lower on the costs.

 

[JohnK]

I commuted MCY-SYD-MCY weekly for 4 years - fully funded. The weekly airfare/accom/car/toll/parking came in >$1,800/wk ... big number to self fund.

When you put it that way my commute doesn't sound great. Almost half my salary goes on those expenses.

 

[Dr Ralph]

A belated welcome beroccaboy . Nothing posted since you joined in June? I'm sure you have something valuable to contribute to the various forums.