craig_will

Anyone know of any discounts / additonal bagage for new migrants? With any of the Airlines (coming from the UK).

Tubbs2Oz

BA only charge an extra £32 or so per bag if you pay in advance online - at least for the first couple of extra. And that's a full 23kg extra per bag.

GarryP

If you go via the US (eg the long way round) you can get 2 pieces of baggage (eg 40+kg) rather than the usual 20kg. Air New Zealand is a carrier that does this. Emirates does 30kg via the Asia route.

craig_will

Thanks guys!

moneypenny20

If you've not validated and are booking a one way ticket, Singapore will give you double the allowance for free (well it's probably worked into the ticket but you get the idea) so 40kg. You need confirmation from Singapore that check in staff are to allow it though.

bcworld

The BA deal is actually really good value - especially if you have an insane amount of stuff you don't want to ship because you can pay for up to 10 extra bags!!!

BA only fly to Sydney though and I've never been able to work out if these baggage rules also apply to codeshares on Qantas to other cities?

moneypenny20

You do also have to be prepared to do BA longhaul. Saving a few quid on luggage just doesn't make that worthwhile in my opinion

billymacker

who right in their head would fly with BA, Look at all the people that are going to have trouble with them this xmas,

Centurion

I have to agree. BA and Qantas unions don't seem to understand that they are about to put themselves out of business. Why the travelling public uses those two carriers is still a mystery to me given the alternatives which are better by far and cheaper in many instances.

bcworld

In Australia I'd say Qantas benefits from frequent flyer loyalties - for anyone that does a lot of domestic travel, Qantas is really the only way to collect miles in a global program. I'd generally never considered paying for QF/BA for my own travel, but now that I have built up a stash of Qantas points due to work travel - I find myself looking at them on the Kanagroo route - the 35000pts I'd earn seems attractive added to the ones I already have - maybe I'd end up regretting it though! Should add the fare was competitive, I wouldn't pay (loads) more just to get points!

FWIW, I did fly BA in August on a frequent flyer redemption and the service on board was great, not class leading but no complaints.

Centurion

Yes I agree. Regionally they are OK to collect points on especially with the everyday rewards at woolies. Although the sheer number of points required to redeem business seats (256,000 BNE to LHR) (126,000 in Y) and availability of rewards make it terrible for me personally. That said, they do have a lot of inventory of economy seats for redemption but again I'm not sold on the value of QF points.

By contrast Virgin Atlantic want 180,000 return SYD to LHR in Upper Class and 90,000 in Y.

I defected to Virgin Atlantics flying club this year and link my Amex points to it, car hire and collect miles on Virgin Blue and V Australia. It doesnt work too bad regionally although it does mean I route though SYD on the way to London. But VS is about the best business class offering on the kangaroo route now so I shall stick with that for a while.

I don't think there are any perfect solutions down here FF wise.

Hebe

Not everybody finds BA and Qantas bad - I don't have a problem with them and you can get some fantastic deals if you shop around even with these two carriers. I remember flying BA to NY for 150 pounds return, Miami for about 250 etc etc. OH flew with Qantas back to the UK earlier this year in BC for $5000 - very good prices when you compare them to other airlines.

Most of the larger carriers are a much of a muchness - it's just that the staff tend to be friendlier on the Asian flights but not always!

Also in Europe (BA) and Qantas (Oz) they are probably one of the more frequent flyng airlines.

DadAgain

I've always found QA/BA to be one of the (if not *the*) cheapest carriers out there for BNE-LHR.

They also have the advantage of shorter turnaround times in transit than many other airlines AND using T5 which is so much nicer and more efficient than the older terminals.

I've not havd any problems with service on them so will continue to grace them with my patronage (particularly as every couple of years we have enough QFF points to do the trip for the cost of taxes only).

Other airlines may have FF schemes requiring fewer points - but I've not found one that enables me to earn them as quickly as QFFs so
90,000Virgin vs 126,000Qantas compares something like so:

Virgin: $135,000 at $1.5:1point credit card earnings
QA: $126,000 at $1:1point credit card earnings.... throw in points from domestic business travel, car hires and hotels and the QA 'time to fly' is much quicker than other reward schemes (for us).

(Plus flying virgin to UK out of Brisbane would be a PIA - gotta go via SYD)

bcworld

Unfortunately not. All BA/QF Kangaroo codeshares now use T3 so it depends on your route. But if you are on a BA flight from SIN or BKK you'll go to T3...Hong Kong I think will still go to T5.

Kayelem

I rang singapore airways the other day they say 40kgs each for 1 way ticket and unvalidated visa.