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Australia is one of the hardest awards with frequent flyer miles. Part of it is that there are very few routes between the US and Australia, served by only five airlines:
- United (Star Alliance)
- Qantas (oneworld)
- Delta (SkyTeam)
- Hawaiian (no alliance, American Airlines partner)
- Virgin Australia (no alliance, Delta partner)
Add in a flight from Vancouver to Sydney on Air Canada, and those are basically the options to get from the US to Australia without having to transit Asia.
The Big Deal with Transiting Asia
When I first started looking into going to Australia about three years ago, I thought: what’s the big deal with transiting Asia?
The big deal is that transiting any part of Asia but especially Southeast Asia adds hours and hours of flying, not to mention layovers, to the trip.
According to the Great Circle Mapper:
- Los Angeles to Sydney direct is 7,488 miles
- Los Angeles to Tokyo to Sydney is 10,297 miles (about six extra hours of flying)
- Los Angeles to Tokyo to Bangkok to Sydney is 13,002 miles (about 11 extra hours of flying)
My goal for award bookings to Australia is direct flights. This post will discuss the best routes, times of year, and miles to collect to book direct flights to Australia in economy.
The three best miles to have to get to Australia in economy are:
- American Airlines miles: 37,500 miles each way and partners with Qantas and Hawaiian
- United miles: 40k miles each way, has its own flights and partners with Air Canada
- US Airways miles: 80k miles roundtrip. Currently has access to United and Air Canada flights. Switches alliances March 30, 2014. Will lose United and Air Canada access and gain Qantas access.
Delta charges 100k miles roundtrip to Australia in economy, which is 25-33% more than its competitors, so I will ignore the Delta and Virgin Australia award space to Australia in this post.
Save your miles by using American, United, or US Airways miles to book Qantas, United, Air Canada, and Hawaiian award space.
American Airlines Partners
American Airlines miles can be used to book Qantas and Hawaiian Airlines flights.
Qantas flies:
- Dallas to Brisbane
- Los Angeles to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane
- Honolulu to Sydney (some flights are operated by subsidiary Jetstar)
Hawaiian flies:
- Honolulu to Sydney and Bribane
Award space is generally very good on the LAX to Brisbane and Sydney routes. The LAX to Melbourne route isn’t as good, but Qantas has connections throughout Australia, so getting to any city is easy.
My main advice with American Airlines miles is to be flexible. While March and April are wide open on the Qantas flight to Sydney, there are some big gaps in July.
But starting in late July, there is award space every day!
Pay attention to this tomorrow because while Qantas is liberal with award space during the North American summer, United is stingy.
Qantas also has great space next Southern Hemisphere summer in November and December 2014 from Los Angeles to Sydney.
Free Stopovers
Booking with American Airlines miles entitles you to a free stopover in the North American International Gateway City in both directions.
Learn more about these perks in Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about United awards to Australia. Then I’ll discuss premium cabin awards to Australia.
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How about premium seats? That’s the REALLY difficult find. Economy is plentiful by comparison…
Who wants to sit back of the bus for 13-26+ hours?
Ironically, on United and during the high season for Australia (dec / jan) premium is all you get, most likely. I just went to Australia over NYE and United only released first class for the most part. I would have loved to save some miles and fly business, but it was all sold out, and coach too. The trick is you have to wait until the last moment, like a week or 10 days in advance.
I did a post a few months ago about business class (lie-flat) options on AA to Sydney without transiting Asia b/c its much less miles.
http://wp.me/p450qo-9w
Too bad you cant do international stopovers with AA miles. Tahiti/Fiji sounds like an awesome stopover destination. I’ll settle for HNL though.
And i’m definitely up for sitting 12+ hours in coach. I like the challenge. Sometimes its just unavoidable.
Also makes business class that much more awesome instead of being jaded and complain about sub-par champagne and low-res IFE.
@Paul, well “wants to” may be a bit of an exaggeration, but “willing to” – yes. I’ve always been in the more trips to more places camp, rather than the luxury in the air camp. And for Australia you’re right. You’ll either need to fly coach or be quite flexible/lucky to get a premium seat.
For insane people like me who seek out and enjoy 23-hour layovers, I think (it’s just based on one booking, not thorough research) Alaska’s website is a goldmine. My search found lots of routings with one or more such layovers built into the basic ticket. I’m routing to Cairns with a nice layover in Brisbane, and returning from Ayers Rock with a nice layover in Darwin. For the return ticket especially, they were willing to hopscotch me all over the country for many combinations of multiple 23-hour layovers in choices of Alice Springs, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, etc., though I picked Darwin this time. You can also pick up premium space on those flights within Australia easily and for a relatively modest premium over coach.
Alaska also allows redemptions on Quantas at 85,000 miles round trip in economy.
You should also be able to book Alaska in first class from the US to Hawaii, and continue on to Hawaii on Quantas, but for some reason I’m not seeing availability on the Alaska website for this.
I really love this kind of post. How about a series on getting to the Middle East. That seeems disproportionately high for redemptions. Trying to get to Jordan . . .
Finding award space to New Zealand is pretty difficult, but an LAX-AKL-SYD trip on Air New Zealand would get you to Australia without transiting Asia, and would be relatively little extra flying time.
Also, Travel is Free pointed out that for someone that has Avios (or just wants to hang out in Hawaii), LAX-HNL-SYD is only 37.5 K Avios, as opposed to the 50K that LAX-SYD would be.
I was also going to make that point. I am doing BOS-IAH-LAX-AKL (because the direct BOS-LAX flight is outside the minimum connect window and changing terminals with a 6 month old in 35 minutes seems optimistic)
The other thing to note is you can fly deeper in australia this way.
CNS/PER/ADL/OOL all have directs from AKL rather than flying LAX-SYD-CNS for the great barrier reef for example (And of course you can add a stop over and see NZ)
On the flip side there was not any RETURN Availability AKL/LAX (or SFO/YVR) when I was booking so I wound up returning via asia MEL-SYD-NRT-BOS which is only 1500mi or so longer than the more direct MEL-LAX-BOS routing and I could only find MEL-LAX-DFW-BOS anyway.
Hi Scott,
I tried your services for go to Sydney/Auckland for this coming Dec but a good option was not available for my dates. As plan B, I would like to try for summer 2015, but in business or first. Can you post which miles I should collect to increase my chances of a direct flight for June/July 2015 in a flat bed? Thanks!
The downside to routing via Asia is less when traveling from NYC or Boston. Flying to Sydney via Tokyo adds less than four hours of flight time. The Asia transit also gives you the chance to avoid an overnight flight if that’s your preference.
If I’m using AMEX Membership Rewards points to get from NYC to New Zealand in business class, which airline transfer partner is my best bet? Since Air New Zealand does not release space on its LAX/SFO/YVR-AKL routes in business, would Aeroplan be my best option, routing through Asia? (and does Air Canada even allow a routing from North America-Asia-Oceania?)
thanks!
Great post. Thank you so much! Is Hawaii considered a ” North American International Gateway City.”
Also, I’d love the same type of post to South Africa and Botswana, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Bangkok.
Sorry, I meant Honolulu. I know Hawaii isn’t a city.
I’m in the “who wants to sit 15+ hours in the back of the plane” camp. I did that once and would not like to repeat the experience. If going for an economy ticket, I think it makes sense to insert a strategic stopover like Honolulu or Fiji. Sydney is a ~10.5 hr. flight from HNL or ~5 hrs. from NAN.
Last month while planning a trip to Australia for my family of 7 over next Christmas/NYE, I was scared to read all the posts about how difficult it is to get to Australia. So we turned it into an adventure. We are flying United LAX-PEK-BKK-BNE, with a 12-hour layover in Beijing (just long enough to visit the Mutianyu Great Wall). Five of us are in coach and two are in first/business (we used all the award seats available, and we will take turns sitting/sleeping in first class). Because of United’s new rules, we could not fly round trip (impossible to do this trip in four legs), so we are coming home on American, with a two-day stopover in Honolulu (yes, it is a North American gateway city)! With advance planning, we were able to book the flights we wanted on the weekends bookending our Christmas vacation. With such a large family, we need to be flexible with our flights and can usually only afford coach seats, but I am so grateful for miles and points that are allowing my family to see the world!
Great choice in picking mutianyu versus Badaling! I am not sure if United will allow you to take turns sleeping in businessfirst but in the case they do not and if the flight is not full, try to request an entire row in coach for each of the 5 members in coach when you get to the airport. I have no problem sleeping in coach and from simply asking the gate agent this I’ve always had success when the flight is less than 90% full.
Thank you @Rachel! That sounds like a great trip. I may just have to copy you.
The Qantas flight from Dallas continues onto Sydney. It stops in BNE to refuel but I believe you can get off the plane. Qantas does not fly Brisbane to Dallas but does fly Sydney to Dallas.
[…] part 1, I discussed the economy award options to Australia with American Airlines […]