Should I hold off on buying fare due to empty flight?

[whatsupdoc]

Hi all! I'm planning to travel from Melbourne to London on 2nd Nov return 23rd Nov 2018. Not planning to use points but hoping to get the best value. Best price is with Royal Brunei and none of the other flights seem give enough points to make paying the extra worthwhile (I looked at Southern China, Malaysia Airlines, Emirates (25x flybuys) and Virgin). There currently seem to be plenty of seats available so my question is should I hold off on making this flight purchase (even though it's already pretty cheap at $990) in the hope that they drop the flight prices to incentivise more purchases of the flight and also look out for other airline discounts during this time until the seats start to fill up? Or should I just make the purchase because it's unlikely to go down any further? Also do Royal Brunei have any partners that I can transfer points from this flight to or is it too discounted economy?

The route available that day is:
MEL-BWN-LHR
Flight 1 :J9 Z9 C9 D5 Y9 B9 H9 L9 N9 K9 T9 M9W9 U9 X9 Q9 R9 S9 V9 O9
Flight 2: J9 Z9 C9 D8 Y9 B9 H9 L9 N9 K9 T9 M9W9 U9 X9 Q9 R9 S9 V9 O9

LHR-BWN-MEL
Flight 1:J9 Z9 C9 D1 Y9 B9 H9 L9 N9 K9 T9 M9W9 U9 X9 Q9 R9 S9 V9 O9
Flight 2:J9 Z9 C9 D1 Y9 B9 H9 L9 N9 K9 T9 M9W9 U9 X9 Q9 R9 S9 V9 O9

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Royal Brunei's price seems to be fairly constant - around the $990 level. It's what friends paid last year to fly. It's not going to discount much from that - maybe $100 if you're lucky.

But what might change is some of the majors... Singapore Airlines was offering prices in the $900s earlier this year for Europe, and could possibly again. Prices for the majors are regularly in the $950-$1150 range off peak, and you'll get some benefits such as transfer through a better hub (than BWN), free booze (if that's important), more extensive IFE (depending on the carrier, and if that's important), and potentially access to FF points.

I don't think RB has any partners. At least none that i can think of. Etihad's program is a good place to store a whole bunch of airline points from non-alliance carriers, but RB isn't included in that unfortunately.

 

[PLANT]

Go to cashrewards---->but Woolies egift cards 5% off---->then go to Woolies---->use egift cards to buy flight centre gift cards----->go to flight centre-----> price match cheap flight------>pay $19-----> get price change guarantee (get price difference back if price goes down.)
Follow me: @1thewhale1
Subscribe: goo.gl/vvWZTw

 

[jase05]

Have flown several times with BI and they have no partners to transfer points to. More often then not I’ve found the flights at around half capacity. No alcohol served but have found the service and comfort pretty good and have yet to have a bad flight with them. BWN is only a small airport with not much to do but if you are there on a lengthy transfer it’s very cheap and easy to head into BSB and look around. I do believe that from October they are changing it from a 1215 departure to 1840 departure and have cut out the fuel stop in DXB which will take several hours off the flight aswell which was a PITA

 

[whatsupdoc]

Thank you very much for the advice. The Flight Centre tip is a handy one @PLANT , should I have the flight centre cards pre-bought prior to going in or can I get them to set aside the ticket for me before purchasing the cards and using them?