How do I get the best price on J fares with QF?

[reductionist]

What's the best strategy for purchasing the cheapest possible J seat (non-award) on upcoming QF flights?

1. Book as far in advance as possible.
2. Wait for some sort of sale on J fares (does this even happen?)
3. No dice. QF always charges the same price for J seats.

Comparing prices on MEL-SYD return J seats for next week versus mid-October and both periods are listed at $557 each way.

As you can tell I've never paid for my own J seat before.

 

[TonyHancock]

According to the somewhat sleazy salesman who contacted me last week Flightcentre Corporate can beat any published online QF fare! :shock:

His quotes to me were approx $2-300 less than the online fares.

Of course you need a corporate account with them, however my company is only small so I do wonder if anyone can sign up with them.

 

[Mal]

Make friends with either:

- Travel purchasing officer at a huge company who has good contracts with Qantas.
- TA who has access to special fares.

But I don't think you'll find many TAs in Australia who can give great deals on Domestic J - the margins are too thin.

 

[TonyHancock]

I should clarify that the $2-300 savings were based on MEL-LHR flights.

 

[docjames]

I should clarify that the $2-300 savings were based on MEL-LHR flights.

Thats a pretty small saving on a lhr J fare. The corporate rates i've seen on aus-eu are about a 25-45% discount on J/D or 12-25% on F/A depending on exact routing.

 

[TonyHancock]

Thats a pretty small saving on a lhr J fare. The corporate rates i've seen on aus-eu are about a 25-45% discount on J/D or 12-25% on F/A depending on exact routing.

My thoughts exactly. I kicked the salesman into touch. My company is quite small though. We have about 15 MEL-LHR flights year, and then 40-50 internal segments per year.

 

[cove]

I class J fares require a 21 day advance purchase and they are points upgradeable to First if you are lucky.MEL has been a lucky spot for us in the past before we started a points only program.

 

[Travel Guru]

Tony,

$2-300 off a LHR J fare is a joke...they make a far bigger margin than that on corporate netts.

I have access to all the same corporate fares that FC Corporate and the like do, feel free to send me a PM and i'm happy to give you an idea on whats available.

With domestic J, the only way you'll get discounts is using someone big like FC corporate who want the business purely to hit their back end targets which are massive...no travel agent gets commission on the front end on domestic, so its all about the backend and its really only the really big boys who play the back end game with QF.

TG