Flying to Australia

EvilRob

EvilRob

EvilRob

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15 Jan 2011
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It's been a long time dream of my wife's to go to Australia and I think we'll probably do it at the end of this year.

I can't stomach the thought of flying a journey like that in economy, but spending £6k per person for business is not something I'd like to do either. I try to level it by imagining what I'd do if someone came up to me just before I got on the flight and offered me £10k in cash for our biz class seats.

Any good tactics from the well travelled here to get cheaper business class flights to Sydney? I do travel a fair bit for work but I'm all in on Virgin Atlantic for points/status which I don't think will help.
 
Thanks chaps. I'm not eligible for Amex again yet but perhaps I can do it through my wife. She will be super disappointed if we can't make it happen this year so might have to just suck it up, but we are easy about which airport we fly from (London, Manchester or Birmingham)
 
weringo said:
If you use airmiles it will costs you significantly less than cash to get into the business cabin and since the introduction of Avios Booster you can accumulate avois very quickly. Off peak to Sydney will cost you 290,000 avios plus £1,500 in business on BA for 2 tickets with a 241 voucher.

Unfortunately there's no great sign up bonuses on credit cards at the moment, but here's an idea of how you could get there:

1) Sign up to Amex Platinum card and spend £6k in 3 months to earn 6,000 avios and 40,000 bonus avios
2) Use Avios booster to add another 138,000 avois
3) Refer wife to BA Amex Premium card (around 10,000 referral bonus avios from memory). Cancel platinum card to get pro rata refund
4) Spend £10k in a year (including £3k in 3 months) to earn 15,000 avios and 25,000 bonus avios, and a 241 voucher.
5) Use avios booster to add another 56,000 avios

Total cash outlay
Amex platinum membership fee £180
Amex BA fee £250
Avios boosting at 0.92p £1,785
Flight fees and taxes £1,500

Total £3,715 or £1,856 per flight

Your challenge may be spending quickly enough if you want to go this year. Also if you plan to depart from Heathrow, getting reward flight availability this year probably isn't realistic. There is more availability from regional airports or you could defer the trip until next year and book the seats 1 year in advance when they become available.

You would also need to consider eligibility for Amex aldign up bonuses if either of you have had an Amex in the last couple of years.
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It looks like I still have 70k Avios from when I used to fly BA. That's something to work with :| Wife could get new amex promotion but I am a long way off from that. Thanks for the detailed work through!
 
70k - Avios already
25k - BA Amex Premium bonus
50k - Assumed business travel over next ~6 months
140k - Avios boosters

Seems quite doable if I can convince wife to do this in Oct/Nov 25 instead of 24. Wish I had started trying to figure this out earlier.
 
Up to 116k Avios with a recent work flight, some work expenses and the BA CC bonus. Wondering whether to 3x boost the recent 45k added, that would get me to the required 250k if I fly from London.
I'd just do it but I'm reading online it's difficult to get club world flights for London to Sydney even phoning up at midnight, don't want to waste the boost money.
 
Looks like it has gone up from 290,000 to 340,000 Avios, kind of a pain. I might have to do one way in business and the other in premium economy.
 
I got our flights booked in BA business class to Australia! Companion voucher plus 145,000 points plus about £750 for both our outbound flights. I had to book at midnight 355 days in advance.
I don't have enough points to book the return yet so I think I'll just book some premium economy return flights with cheap cancellation fees and try and nab some last minute return BA reward flights while we're out there. There seems to often be club world availability last minute.

Overall, well worth it - even if it only ends up being our outbound flight the dread is rapidly receding. Thanks to @weringo in particular.
 
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Rotty said:
those membership[ fees a are way off

BA card is 300
Amex Pt is £575

Airmiles is the way to go but needs quite a bit f work and I would also be wary of devaluation / rule changes such as Virgin have just done
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Amex Platinum currently has an offer for 80,000 points/£10k. If I'm going to get enough points for the business class return ticket I'd need to get the Platinum plus do some point boosters. It's quite a big investment when the chance of it not working out is possible. That said, I'd still have the miles to use for something else. It's difficult to decide vs just buying premium economy return flights on Singapore Airlines or another carrier that has reasonable 1 way fares (BA doesn't).
 
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