juddy

Recently the wife had to return to the Uk at short notice, the cheapest flight was $3000, return, the same flight from the Uk, was $1400.

Now you can take in the fact that prices go up and down due to holidays etc, but double the cost hows that, its the same plane, route, etc etc, so you call a uk agent and ask to book a flight from oz to uk, ah they say we cant do that, you have to go via a Australian agent.....

Any boby else had issues with flight costs???

asprilla

yes - everyone has had the same issues. Competition in Australia is lacking, big time.

If only your wife had spotted bcworld's thread, she could have had a business class flight instead for the same price. Ah well.

bcworld

It doesn't matter who you call or what website you book it on you'll still have to pay the AU-UK-AU fare. The prices are set by what people are prepared to pay...the Aussie market stomachs higher fares.

There are ways to try and get yourself a better deal. Try 2 one-ways, or 2 returns for different legs of the journey. Buying fares ex-Asia can be advantageous when the A$ is high.

xzibit

I don't understand how competition is lacking, on the OZ-UK routes, but not on the UK-OZ routes??

How can that be??

From the UK for example, I am looking at LHR-ADL flights. I can fly with Qantas, BA (QF codeshare), Singapore, and Malaysian off the top of my head.

Now, they fly in both directions, so there's the same competition??

And, when I validated my visa, I wasn't sure how long I wanted to stay in Oz, so I booked a one-way UK-OZ, and paid in the region of £780 (December). Once there, I got told I had to get back for work reasons, so had to book a last minute flight from Oz, and had to pay in AUS$ and I got one of the last seats on a QF flight, and with conversion it worked out at around £850 (January).

So, I'm a little unsure as to why people always seem to think that flights out of Australia are so expensive.

I'm not arguing here by the way, just in my experience they are not. I'm happy to be shown I was lucky in getting a cheap flight though.

harrip

Urm, Airlines are the only people offering flights so they have a monoploy in the same way car hire companies have a monopoly on hire cars.

Who else, other than an Airline, do you want to get flights from?

bcworld

If your Dec flight departed between 10 - 24th Dec then I'd say your return flight was very expensive in comparison.

xzibit

It departed 10pm on the 25th December. We saw Santa whilst passing 15,000ft - true story!!

juddy

iam not sure its all to do with competion, as a number of the arabic aielines now fly here, its more so greed, the same route on the sa,e plane, book booked in the uk its half the price.....

we looked into one ways etc, even air asia x, but its no cheaper, in fact air asia x are not a good deal, and once you add on food , baggage allowance etc, there very poor, unless of course you can get a deal??

mvagusta

Could it be something to do with the seasons.

E.g more people want to go to the Uk in summer and less people to Oz in the winter.

I'm looking at Emirates flights to Perth for the Christmas period (Oz summer) and they want £1400 for the good flight times. The same flight in June/July only costs £770.

Less demand at the off peak times = cheaper prices Imho.

juddy

Maybe but the UK, does not have a proper summer these days......

xzibit

LOL!!

mvagusta

Yes we do.

It lasts for 3 weeks normally around the end of May beginning of June.

Sometimes we get it in January.

louie

Might be worth having a good look at bcworld's excellent thread and getting a business class return for that price (s/to availability of course). But if you want to pursue it, you need to get your skates on and sign up as a FF today.

Weebie

I want to go back to the UK to see my friends. It's ridiculous We need Ethiad and Qatar in Perth asap!!

mvagusta

Thanks for the info.

Unfortunately Emirates aren't part of the Star Alliance as far as I'm aware. I wish they were.