Best U.S. City to fly to Australia

[Gunner22aa]

In the not to distant future I will be booking two of these fares from Edmonton Canada so I have been doing some research on ITA Matrix. Depending on who you want to fly with I have found fares from $4850 on Philippians Air right up to over $15,000 on a couple so finding a fare of $10,000 doesn't surprise me. That being said I'm sure there are better deals to be had. I'm currently looking at both United at about $6900 and Air Canada at about $7100 which is the way I am leaning.

[wasup254]

We are doing a cruise that leaves from Auckland to Vancouver and we are only needing one way fare to Auckland. We live in Seattle...

 

Best airline and best route?

 

Vancouver, we will do the train from vanocuver to Seattle ...

 

Thanks

[FlyerTalker]

We are doing a cruise that leaves from Auckland to Vancouver and we are only needing one way fare to Auckland. We live in Seattle...

 

Best airline and best route?

And, the never ending question: What does "best" mean?

 

Some might say that the "best" would be Emirates in first class from Seattle going via Dubai. Others want the shortest flight time. Others want cheapest.

[lssg]

by best I do mean cheapest....you are a wealth of information Flytalker...I have learned a lot from reading your posts thanks

[debshomespun]

by best I do mean cheapest....you are a wealth of information Flytalker...I have learned a lot from reading your posts thanks

 

Have you checked with Cruise Air? We are flying to Sydney in Jan/15, and I had been researching airfare for several months. We do not have any frequent flyer miles. I had been coming up with a price of over $5,000. I am half way between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I was looking at flying from LAX to Sydney, or Phoenix to Sydney, and checking all the major airlines, including Hawaiian. I was thinking of going to the west coast and staying a couple days to break up the trip. Then, I checked Celebrity Cruise Air, and the price, from Cleveland was just under $4400.00 for the 2 of us. I booked the air this way. We are flying out of Cleveland (United) early in the morning, to LAX. We have a 11.5 hr layover (I wanted it this way, just in case snowy in Cleveland), then we fly Qantas to Sydney. On our flight home, we fly out of Sydney about noon, (on Qantas) and have about a 4 hour layover, then fly United home. These are economy seats, but that is all we could afford. I was somewhat happy with what I was able to get.

 

We will arrive in Sydney and stay 3 nights, board Celebrity Solstice, sailing 12 nights to Auckland, stay in NZ for 6 nights, fly back to Sydney for a 3 night stay, then board RC Rhapsody for an 11 night cruise, arriving back in Sydney. Not sure if you are sailing Celebrity or RC, but many people have said the cruise air, especially for 1 way fares, they are very, very competitive.

[TruckerDave]

Have you checked with Cruise Air? We are flying to Sydney in Jan/15, and I had been researching airfare for several months. We do not have any frequent flyer miles. I had been coming up with a price of over $5,000. I am half way between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I was looking at flying from LAX to Sydney, or Phoenix to Sydney, and checking all the major airlines, including Hawaiian. I was thinking of going to the west coast and staying a couple days to break up the trip. Then, I checked Celebrity Cruise Air, and the price, from Cleveland was just under $4400.00 for the 2 of us. I booked the air this way. We are flying out of Cleveland (United) early in the morning, to LAX. We have a 11.5 hr layover (I wanted it this way, just in case snowy in Cleveland), then we fly Qantas to Sydney. On our flight home, we fly out of Sydney about noon, (on Qantas) and have about a 4 hour layover, then fly United home. These are economy seats, but that is all we could afford. I was somewhat happy with what I was able to get.

 

We will arrive in Sydney and stay 3 nights, board Celebrity Solstice, sailing 12 nights to Auckland, stay in NZ for 6 nights, fly back to Sydney for a 3 night stay, then board RC Rhapsody for an 11 night cruise, arriving back in Sydney. Not sure if you are sailing Celebrity or RC, but many people have said the cruise air, especially for 1 way fares, they are very, very competitive.

 

 

Too bad you couldn't get a AA/USair combo with Qantas at they are in the same alliance. (One World). United is in Star Alliance and flies their own metal to SYD.

[ducklite]

I would not recommend the ATN routing through PPT. Small open air airport with very limited facilities, very long connecting times which would generally require an overnight stay in an expensive place. A cheap hotel will still run over $100 for the nigh and a $20 cab ride each way, and eating there is outrageously expensive. Also immigration there is about the slowest I've ever encountered anywhere in my life.

[em-sk]

Too bad you couldn't get a AA/USair combo with Qantas at they are in the same alliance. (One World). United is in Star Alliance and flies their own metal to SYD.

 

I have done the United flight from LAX to SYD in economy. The United 747 has a fairly cramp layout. I have not done Qantas on a long-hall flight but after being on one of their short hall flights I would picked that over United for the flight to SYD.

 

I would not worry to much about different alliance networks. These are both airlines that have interlined with each other long before any of the airline alliances existed and still today there is still a lot of passengers transferring between non-aligned airlines all the time.

Edited June 28, 2014 by em-sk

[CGYCruisingFamily]

Lax most likely but we have had issues with luggage going missing via that airport.

 

Many flights will go through Honalulu just as a heads up.

 

If Canada is an option, there are direct flights from Vancouver to Sydney operated by Air Canada. We found this flight not too bad aircraft wise. (I have travelled between Canada and Australia 17 times over the years and found while the direct flight was long, it was one of the best I had done).

 

And if I had a choice to would take Qantas over any if the American carriers any day.

Edited June 28, 2014 by CGYCruisingFamily

[Zach1213]

I have done the United flight from LAX to SYD in economy. The United 747 has a fairly cramp layout. I have not done Qantas on a long-hall flight but after being on one of their short hall flights I would picked that over United for the flight to SYD.

 

I would not worry to much about different alliance networks. These are both airlines that have interlined with each other long before any of the airline alliances existed and still today there is still a lot of passengers transferring between non-aligned airlines all the time.

 

 

United has put 777s on both SYD routes. Comfort wise not much difference, but you do get private TVs on the 777s.

 

Qantas is my regular carrier to Australia, and I've done it in coach a couple times. Both 747 and A380 are better than United in my book, but the A380 wins hands down.