How to fly Starclass for less! Up to $500pp less!

[pshepvic]

OK, this has worked twice for me. I can't guarantee it will work for you but it is worth a shot.

The first time I flew Starclass was to Hawaii on the first ever flight from Melbourne. Apart from the 15 hour delay, it was a great trip. Fantastic staff (Merryn the cabin crew manager is the best crew member I have had on ANY flight on ANY airline!), surprisingly good food and a pleasant comfortable journey overall. This flight two of us paid $2800 each return. Not bad considering Q economy was $2200 at the time.

I've since booked two more Starclass trips.

The first is to Japan - I went to jetstar.com and found the dates & price for a return trip. I then wanted to play with the return date, so instead of putting the return details in each time, I just put one way dates from Japan in. This charges you in the local currency - Japan of course being Yen. Lo and behold, even with the credit card conversion fee, the ticket was $500 PER PERSON LESS than when I was paying it as part of a return trip in Aussie dollars! So I booked the two separate one way flights, saved us $1000 on the two tickets!

When booking more fares back to Hawaii (cheap way to get to the states in something more comfortable than economy, and more comfortable on the wallet) for June next year, I tried the same thing. Guess what? This time the tickets to Hawaii only cost $2500 per person return - $300 less than the first time we went - and not bad considering the tickets have also gone up about $100 each since they launched as well!

The trick is - you need to book on a day where the Aussie dollar is high, but Jetstar haven't adjusted their fares in the foreign location. When I booked the Japan flights, the dollar was over 100 Yen, and the Hawaii flights, it was 93 cents US. I had another look at the Hawaii option the other day - the fares from the US have now been adjusted up by about $100 USD or so, plus the dollar has dropped, so at the moment you would only save $120 per ticket. Still, for very little hassle of putting through two separate bookings instead of one, you can save a reasonable amount of $.

$120 can pay for quite a few Pina Coladas on Waikiki beach...

There is one other catch - you can only use Visa or Mastercard - they don't take Amex on the bookings made in foreign currency (even for tickets booked in US dollars!) Strange seeing as they did accept Amex for the one way tickets out of Australia.

One final tip - check availability BEFORE you book! You don't want to book the one way fare there in Aussie dollars, and then find there is nothing available coming back!

[Mwenenzi]

The same often happens ex NZ with QF. Aust-NZ-Aust return often more $$ than Aust-NZ (booked on QF Au web site) and NZ-Aus (booked on QF NZ web site).

Different markets have different pricing. The selling price of a product has nothing to do with cost of a product

[pshepvic]

You are certainly correct there - Volkswagen have been selling the Golf at a loss in Australia for years!

[straitman]

You are certainly correct there - Volkswagen have been selling the Golf at a loss in Australia for years!

That says it all

[wandering_fred]

Not a great a surprise

Anyone traveling to (or past) Singapore from Australia more than once a year can save a great deal more by simply arranging to purchase the one year return ex SIN on QF flights. Just select the singapore web site from the QF home page. Oh yes at least in economy you end up in a higher fare class as well.

Happy wandering

Fred

[futaris]

wandering_fred,

Do you know what class the economy QF Singapore - Australia flights end up in? I'm looking to credit the miles to AA...

[serfty]

I have done one or two of these and the cheaper fares ("Super Saver") were generally in V class.

[futaris]

It's a shame the qantas.com.sg site doesn't have options for multi-city. I'm sure some of the fares allow for a stopover and/or open-jaw...

[wandering_fred]

The standard fare is Vclass though on the weekends one segment could easily end up in R class for about $20 more. via DPS on a through ticket requires H class, about SG$200 more each way. But then OW Sapphires and above have a shot at the domestic biz seats on the 737.

I'm certain at least one of the on-line Singapore TAs would be happy to oblige with a bit of a openjaw and GSTfree connecting fare. Figure on an extra $20-30 for their trouble and FAXing CC details. For that matter if you are not all that worried about crediting to AA - the BA Singapore office would be happy to. And the savings applies to BA WT+ as well....... though BAs order fee is a bit more than the TAs.

Happy wandering


Fred

[JohnK]

Anyone traveling to (or past) Singapore from Australia more than once a year can save a great deal more by simply arranging to purchase the one year return ex SIN on QF flights.

Some of us were lucky enough to book the BA WT+ specials for a reasonable price, ex SIN/BKK, until QF decided they wanted to introduce economy class cabin at business class prices. Now we are stuck back in WHY cabin with CX or BA. Thanks QF. Not....

Do you know what class the economy QF Singapore - Australia flights end up in? I'm looking to credit the miles to AA...

Generally these have been V class on most of my bookings.

It's a shame the qantas.com.sg site doesn't have options for multi-city. I'm sure some of the fares allow for a stopover and/or open-jaw...

It may be of no help to you but BA has open jaw type of airfares but from my experience they appear to be really expensive. Not worth the trouble. Find a travel agent that may be able to assist....