NZ Fares to the US 60% Difference than Oz

[Pooch]

Great status run idea - especially if coupled with a LAN J fare SYD-AKL!

And there's the rub! I've just tried booking LAN J SYD-AKL-SYD - started with July, working all the way through to October "not available" ... hmmmm

 

[spentan]

wut?

I checked for the AKL-SYD-LAX-SYD-AKL, and I was able to choose the LAN option.

I'm thinking of doing this with mum and dad next year, will give them an opportunity to see NZ as well.

 

[Kangol]

Could you do AKL-SYD-LAX return, but "fail to board" your flight to AKL (from SYD)?

It'd prob still be cheaper lawl

If you have checked baggage, do a stopover in SYD before your last leg so you can pick it up otherwise it will be tagged all the way through. There is the risk of being charged for the unused sector, of course...

 

[Pooch]

wut?

I checked for the AKL-SYD-LAX-SYD-AKL, and I was able to choose the LAN option.

I'm thinking of doing this with mum and dad next year, will give them an opportunity to see NZ as well.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong here ... I go to the LAN site, and have tried both SYD-AKL-SYD and AKL-SYD-AKL ... no availability in ANY cabin! Aaarrggghhh ...

 

[Kangol]

If you have checked baggage, do a stopover in SYD before your last leg so you can pick it up otherwise it will be tagged all the way through. There is the risk of being charged for the unused sector, of course...

Is there a way of booking, say, AKL-SYD-LAX return but making it so that your SYD "stopover" (and the final SYD-AKL leg) is booked 9 or so months in advance? Thereby using that as your next positioning flight for a future long haul flight...
Or would you have to book it without any stopovers and change the date of the final leg after booking..?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Is there a way of booking, say, AKL-SYD-LAX return but making it so that your SYD "stopover" (and the final SYD-AKL leg) is booked 9 or so months in advance? Thereby using that as your next positioning flight for a future long haul flight...
Or would you have to book it without any stopovers and change the date of the final leg after booking..?

you can do anything on the right flexible ticket...

 

[Mal Ware]

Be careful of 'throwing' away the last AKL segment of the ticket if you do this.

Some airlines (Cathay Pacific for example) have been known to recalculate the taxes and fares after this is done and send you an invoice for the difference! It's probably not too likely to happen in Aus but here in Asia and the US it's quite common and carriers don't take kindly to you 'bending' their market pricing...

LOL Would be telling them to shove that where the sun don't shine.

Once you have paid for a service and then decided you no longer wish to use it, you cant be charged extra for failing to use all of the service.

 

[Austman]

Be careful of 'throwing' away the last AKL segment of the ticket if you do this.

Some airlines (Cathay Pacific for example) have been known to recalculate the taxes and fares after this is done and send you an invoice for the difference! It's probably not too likely to happen in Aus but here in Asia and the US it's quite common and carriers don't take kindly to you 'bending' their market pricing...

This gets said quite often. But can you provide some proof of it? Like a newspaper article or a posting from a person that had this issue? It would be good to see how it all turned out.

I can say that I've dropped the last segment many times, including on major Asian and European airlines and have never had a problem (yet...).

 

[wandersen]

You can also do this Mel-Akl-Mel-Stopover (say, one month)-Mel-Lax-Mel-Stopover-AKL

That way you get a weekend in Auckland as well as the trip to LAX.

I used to do this all the time when I lived in the UK to "time-shift" my bookings into a cheaper period.

e.g. In October - make my own way to Paris for a weekend and then book: CDG-LHR-Stopover (until say 23 December)-SYD-LHR-Stopover-CDG

The fares would drop by half as you are paying the October price instead of the December price.

 

[fdken]

I just looked at difference between Qantas Aust and Qantas NZ for the same flight.

Leaving 24 dec Bne to chc and return on 5th jan, on Aust site $503 over and $902 back in Aust $. If booked one way on Aust website $503 over but only $796 Nz (629 aust) for the return trip booked one way for the same flight. How can that be explained??

Once I was booking two trip to Japan with Qf and Qff. It was cheaper by 35% to book frequent flyer seats over in September and January on FF, paid for Qf flight from Tokyo to Bne (few years ago now) in October and back in December.

Leaving from Japan on paid flight was $500 odd cheaper due to combination of seasonality and cheaper from Japan.

 

[Austman]

I just looked at difference between Qantas Aust and Qantas NZ for the same flight.

Leaving 24 dec Bne to chc and return on 5th jan, on Aust site $503 over and $902 back in Aust $. If booked one way on Aust website $503 over but only $796 Nz (629 aust) for the return trip booked one way for the same flight. How can that be explained??

It's always worth looking at 2 x oneways when flying Qantas to NZ or the Pacific Islands (often on code shared).

 

[Sprucegoose]

Not with NZD to my knowledge. Stand to be corrected though.


The usual reason/excuse is wages are different/higher willingness to pay etc. However, I don't believe that we are that different from our Tasman cousins in this regard. So why the difference? Even ignoring exchange rates, it's a $1k difference between the respective local currencies. That's huge!

Simply supply and demand. I would also say there was substantial cost differences between the two countries, starting with a lower tax regime and wages.

 

[fdken]

Simply supply and demand. I would also say there was substantial cost differences between the two countries, starting with a lower tax regime and wages.

I can understand from a business point of view, you charge the most that gives you the best return.

But lower tax regime and and especially wages don't wash when the seat is by the same carrier, on the same flight, booked on the same companies website and differs by a significant amount. At least in my opinion.

Supply and demand often comes into play when you have a direct flight between two cities. Again once I flew Bne-NRT-Pek at a cheaper rate than it was to just fly BNE-NRT. This is repeated often and understandable from a marketing point of view, but not on a cost basis.

 

[Fruitcake]

This is repeated often and understandable from a marketing point of view, but not on a cost basis.

Supply and demand of airfares is unrelated to the cost of operating the service. At the end of the day Australians have more $A to deploy on flights to NZ than NZ residents have $NZ available to spend on flights to Australia. Additionally they have 5x as many people 'bidding' for tickets to NZ than they do 'bidding' for tickets into Australia.

 

[Pooch]

It's always worth looking at 2 x oneways when flying Qantas to NZ or the Pacific Islands (often on code shared).

Agreed. I saved close to A$200 earlier this year on 2xone way bookings SYD-AKL-SYD

 

[fdken]

Supply and demand of airfares is unrelated to the cost of operating the service. At the end of the day Australians have more $A to deploy on flights to NZ than NZ residents have $NZ available to spend on flights to Australia. Additionally they have 5x as many people 'bidding' for tickets to NZ than they do 'bidding' for tickets into Australia.

I agree totally with you re: Supply and demand and amount of dollars points. But I think the same numbers are bidding for the flights because it is the same flight, 5/6 aus and 1/6 Nz bidding for the flight. As you generally book a flight back as well as over. But just being pedantic, . As I said I totally agree with you

 

[burmans]

Leaving 24 dec Bne to chc and return on 5th jan, on Aust site $503 over and $902 back in Aust $. If booked one way on Aust website $503 over but only $796 Nz (629 aust) for the return trip booked one way for the same flight. How can that be explained??

There is an old saying in business, "what is measured is managed". I would suggest the biggest explanation is in fact that there actually isn't a need to explain this to anyone, it's a commercial decsion and the airlines can do what they like. If this was published/monitored and occasionally they had to explain to someone I supect the variance would not be as great. But they don't have to so they can do what they want, and they do.

 

[burmans]

Supply and demand of airfares is unrelated to the cost of operating the service. At the end of the day Australians have more $A to deploy on flights to NZ than NZ residents have $NZ available to spend on flights to Australia. Additionally they have 5x as many people 'bidding' for tickets to NZ than they do 'bidding' for tickets into Australia.

The trouble with this last bit of analysis is that 90-95% of us take return trips, i.e. the Australians bid for not only the trip to NZ but also the trip back. While there are some people moving permanently I'm pretty confident there isn't a material difference in load one way vs. the other.

The first fact that Australiand have more to spend and are willing to throw it around more than Kiwi's would be absolutely true.

 

[infinity]

Supply and demand of airfares is unrelated to the cost of operating the service. At the end of the day Australians have more $A to deploy on flights to NZ than NZ residents have $NZ available to spend on flights to Australia. Additionally they have 5x as many people 'bidding' for tickets to NZ than they do 'bidding' for tickets into Australia.

Yes. But I am yet to meet a kiwi that has gone home! hee hee

 

[Kangol]

The AKL international terminal is very passenger friendly for sleeping.

The last QF flights from the east coast get in around midnight - there is a Late JQ flight from MEL that gets in around 5am, but I would not trust that one.

Looks like that one is going to be discontinued in March 2013, are there any other flights on any airline that get into AKL about that time?

http://www.jetstar.com/~/_media/Jetstar Australia/Files/PDF/Flight Schedules/NW12_Timetable_TT.pdf