Help interpreting fare basis

[Captain Halliday]

A friend has asked for help finding fares SYD-CMB return for a family of four in July school holidays. Cash fares not awards. Travel in Y.

Options in the low $6k are coming up for 4 pax on Google Flights, ITA etc.

I plugged the relevant details into EF and it threw up the option below. However, I'm not very familiar with the underlying fare rules. Can someone assist with a plain English interpretation please?

Could a TA could book SYD-CMB-SYD on a CX excursion fare for AUD570 per pax?

Seems too good to be true.



Further detail on selected fare:

 

[RealtimeY]

You won't be able to book this trip for $570 return.

The EF fare search is not a good tool for general price shopping. It shows you all fares filed, regardless of whether or not there's actual availability. For availability, you need to cross reference with the flight availability search (which is what online booking engines do automatically). It also does not show you taxes and fees.

Put in plain English, the fare is saying that if there is N class available on your flights, you can travel SYD-HKG-CMB and return for a base fare of $570 plus taxes and fees.

However, N class is not available (in fact CX seems not to be selling the seats on that route at all), and the "taxes and fees" would come to $779, bringing the actual total price to $1349, if you could even book it.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Thanks for the rundown. Very helpful.

$1,349 is cheaper than AirAsia via KUL so I’m not surprised it’s unavailable. It did seem too good to be true.

ITA Matrix is throwing up UL direct at around $1,580 which seems competitive.