Confused with airline products and airfares. Help please!

[brrmmm]

Things have changed since I was in the travel industry 20 yrs ago.

Airlines now have so many product options and fare varieties, it’s so confusing trying to compare anything.

Hubby and I have just retired and now looking at doing couple long-haul trips each year, along with maybe domestic or short-haul trips too.
Now in our 60s we wish to travel comfortably and I just cannot bring myself to travel Oz to Europe in one fell swoop!

Looking at either J class (which kinda makes it too $$ for a couple of trips a year) or Y class and stopovers in Asia and Mid-East en route.
Will travel shoulder season – probs April for 2months and again about Sep/Oct for 2months.

Don’t have any FF miles, and wonder should I base my travelling on collecting miles for future trips. If I do this, can anybody suggest which FF programs they’ve been happy/successful with.
I’d be very grateful for any insights on how and where to look for great fares/deals and if anyone has any FF suggestions.

Many thanks!

 

[Mwenenzi]

Things have changed since I was in the travel industry 20 yrs ago.

Airlines now have so many product options and fare varieties, it’s so confusing trying to compare anything.

Hubby and I have just retired and now looking at doing couple long-haul trips each year, along with maybe domestic or short-haul trips too.
Now in our 60s we wish to travel comfortably and I just cannot bring myself to travel Oz to Europe in one fell swoop!

Looking at either J class (which kinda makes it too $$ for a couple of trips a year) or Y class and stopovers in Asia and Mid-East en route.
Will travel shoulder season – probs April for 2months and again about Sep/Oct for 2months.

Don’t have any FF miles, and wonder should I base my travelling on collecting miles for future trips. If I do this, can anybody suggest which FF programs they’ve been happy/successful with.
I’d be very grateful for any insights on how and where to look for great fares/deals and if anyone has any FF suggestions.

Travelling from which major AU airport? (Edit see from profile Sunshine Coast, QLD)
Many options and theories on getting the best value business class ex AU to EU_UK on a regular basis.

Getting to Asia (Y, PE, J cash or award) and then a separate paid business class ticket to EU-UK can be far less $$ than ex AU.

Buying EU-AU-EU returns is often a lot cheaper the AU-EU-AU. So if sure will be doing a few years. one way to EU and then a series of ex EU returns works for some people.

Second tier airlines, Vietnam Airways, SriLankan UL, Chinese airlines, etc can be lot less $ the big name "well known" airlines, EK, QR, QF, BA, SQ etc.

Round the world fares, either by an alliance or airline based (e.g. AY, LH) can be good~great value. With careful planning~routes can get 2 or 3 "trips" on 1 reservation. Are articles on AFF on these products.
Oneworld. Starting a OW RTW in Japan is preferred by many now. Ex AU is a lot more $$

RTW Flights: Round The World Airline Tickets - RTW

Book Round The World airline tickets. Search multi-city flights to hundreds of destinations worldwide from oneworld Alliance member airlines.

www.oneworld.com

The wikipedia entrty for airports generally list airlines~routes in a simple format. Airport web sites tend to be cluttered

Melbourne Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Brisbane Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As for frequent flyers program, if you do not have a good balance now, would go free agent based on schedule and price. Not sensible to get locked in to one airline/alliance ffp. Collect ff miles/avios/points as minor consequence of travel. Not the reason to fly a particular airline~alliance

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Agree with the advice above. Find a cheap economy ticket to asia… jakarta, manila or bangkok, and then fly business class from there. googleflights is a great starting point. You can enter the above three cities into the first box and ‘anywhere’ into the second box. It will show you a map of all the desitinations, and available fares.

I wouldn’t necessarily be tied to a FF program. Nothing is ‘free’. You might be able to earn lots of qantas or Velocity points, but the fuel charges can be expensive. You’d need hundreds of thousands of points for reward tickets to europe.

I’d avoid premium economy class - with one exception. In general, premium economy class is getting close to business class on third tier airlines. Not worth the saving.

The one exception - possibly - to premium economy is with Japan Airlines. Their premium economy comes with big seats, good legroom, and lounge access included. And can sometime be really cheap, like around $3000 return to europe, or even less!

You could then put your points on Qantas, which might get you ticket to sydney or melbourne.

 

[Forg]

I’ve been Google Flights’ing getting to somewhere in Asia on Y and then J from there to Europe, of late … and I think the best price reductions I could find were only maybe from ~$6.5k down to ~$5k (per person). Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but in context of the cost of an entire holiday, that $3k saving isn’t really that much.

Another thing I found, which I thought of maybe more interest to save quite a few more dollars, was daytime Y flights for both legs, with a couple of days in the Asian city in between. I think Malaysian or Thai was one of them, but it was quite a few months ago so that could be wrong. Being stuck in a seat unable to sleep isn’t so bad when it’s a time if day you don’t wanna sleep anyway.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’ve been Google Flights’ing getting to somewhere in Asia on Y and then J from there to Europe, of late … and I think the best price reductions I could find were only maybe from ~$6.5k down to ~$5k (per person). Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but in context of the cost of an entire holiday, that $3k saving isn’t really that much.

Another thing I found, which I thought of maybe more interest to save quite a few more dollars, was daytime Y flights for both legs, with a couple of days in the Asian city in between. I think Malaysian or Thai was one of them, but it was quite a few months ago so that could be wrong. Being stuck in a seat unable to sleep isn’t so bad when it’s a time if day you don’t wanna sleep anyway.

bangkok can be cheap, and so can kuala lumpur sometimes. but the real savings can be had out of manila or jakarta. Should be able to get business class return out of those places for around $3000 and change (that’s return). Add on an ecinomy fare and you’ll be around $4000.

Would be a toss up whether to take that or JAL premium economy, The advantage of JAL is straight through, no mucking around at the asian port. And once in asia, the flights are relatively short at 7-8 hours each leg. Can be quite short for sleeping.

 

[Mwenenzi]

From Feb 2024 AFF article

Strategies for Cheap Business Class Flights to Europe

If you live in Australia, there are several strategies you can use to book cheap Business Class flights to Europe.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[SYD]

Agree with the advice above. Find a cheap economy ticket to asia… jakarta, manila or bangkok, and then fly business class from there. googleflights is a great starting point. You can enter the above three cities into the first box and ‘anywhere’ into the second box. It will show you a map of all the desitinations, and available fares.

Don’t forget Singapore. Not as cheap accommodation wise but there are also reasonable fares ex SIN (but CGK is generally cheaper for flights and o/n accommodation much cheaper but Singapore is a lot more user friendly).

I wouldn’t necessarily be tied to a FF program. Nothing is ‘free’. You might be able to earn lots of qantas or Velocity points, but the fuel charges can be expensive. You’d need hundreds of thousands of points for reward tickets to europe.

QF points are working well for me. Off again next week flying Biz to Europe via CGK (QF classic reward) and QR to/from Europe for ~$4k + 114k points. Then again, for Christmas / New Year and the QR fare into MUC and out of BCN was ~$3.5k (so less than $4k return from Oz). That’s the other key thing, cast a wide net of Euro cities (including open jaw, to find the best fares).

I’d avoid premium economy class - with one exception. In general, premium economy class is getting close to business class on third tier airlines. Not worth the saving.

Except if there’s a good sale fare. It might be double whY but half the cost of J which is what you’d expect. Personally, I’d consider it as part of repositioning to/from Asia but not all the way to/from Europe (nor o/n back from Asia - unless I could upgrade to biz).