Just as the spring thaw starts warming the streets of Sydney and the waters around the Great Barrier Reef, the bush of the outback and the stony face of Ayers Rock, an airfare war to Australia is starting to heat up. With roundtrip tickets dipping down as low as $777 from the West Coast and just over a grand from the East Coast, it’s time to say G’day to the Aussie springtime.
InsertArt(2009922)THE LOWEST airfares are not coming from an Australian airline, or even a US carrier—though both Qantas and United have some great prices (see below)—but rather from the flag-carrier of a country perched between the two: Air New Zealand.
This airfare special (www.airnz.com) is on offer only to US residents with US credit cards, and you must book by Sept 15 for travel from now through Nov 29. But the fare is remarkable: $777 roundtrip out of Los Angeles into Sydney or Melbourne, $877 to Brisbane, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. You can even split the difference for a more fulfilling trip by flying into Sydney or Melbourne and out of Brisbane (or vice versa) for $827.
There’s an advance purchase requirement of at least four days. The minimum stay is six days, the maximum stay one month (and the latest possible return date is Dec 5). The only drawback is that, although you fly via Auckland, you can’t make a stopover in NZ. Taxes and fees can run up to a total of $123 per person, and since these are paper tickets, not e-tickets (despite it being a Web-only deal), figure in another $14.95 for the S&H costs of mailing them to you.
If you’re flying from somewhere beside LA you’ll have to inspect two competing deals from Australia’s Qantas and our own United, as both offer very similar rates; which airline will end up being cheaper for you varies gateway to gateway.
That said, Qantas (www.qantasusa.com/webDeal.php?ID=93) tends to be a wee bit cheaper overall—or at least from the West Coast—again for flights through Nov 29 (return by Dec 5) and only if booked by Sept 15.
Here are the Qantas rates to Sydney or Melbourne (flights to Brisbane cost $100 more):
$806—Los Angeles
$883—San Diego, San Francisco
$938—San Jose
$948—Las Vegas
$993—Seattle
$1,023—Chicago, Denver
$1,043—Dallas
$1,063—Boston, Miami, New York-JFK, Newark, Washington, DC
$1,123—Portland
$1,243—Saint Louis
You can get add-on fares at either end to connect you from another US city (via American) or to an outlying Aussie destination. The minimum stay is still six days and the max one month, and stopovers aren’t permitted. Taxes and such tack on an additional $125 or so.
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Fly with United (www.ual.com/australia) and you’ve got an extra two weeks—until Sept 30—to buy the tickets for travel through Dec 5, and the fares from the Midwest and East Cast can rank a bit lower than with Qantas, but note that Brisbane ain’t on the roster this time. Some sample fares to Sydney or Melbourne:
$810—Los Angeles
$880—San Francisco
$990—Seattle
$1,020—Atlanta, Chicago, Denver
$1,060—Boston, Miami, New York, Washington, DC
Again with the six-day minimum/30-day maximum requirements, and anywhere up to $140 in taxes, but this time there’s no specified advance purchase period.
{Editor’s Note: Have you ever flown Air New Zealand or vacationed Down Under? Do you have an instructive anecdote, tip or horror story to share? We’d love to hear it and possibly reprint it in our letters to the editor column. Simply click here to send a letter to our editors.}
Copyright © 2003 Newsweek Budget Travel, Inc.