stormywhether

Hey all!

We're planning our flights to emigrate to Oz and really want to go via the US to make the most of the double baggage limits compared to flying east.

However there doesn't appear to be a huge range of options available.

Have you done this - or are you planning to? Tell me about the airlines you chose and where you got your tickets from. Also, how much did it cost?

Thanks!

Stormy

meols12

I flew to Australia from Heathrow via Vancouver and LA. Booked my ticket with Travelmood - 3 years ago now, but I think it was about GBP 800.

The flight from LA to Melbourne via Sydney (about 16 hours) was with United Airlines. Abysmal. I definitely wouldn't recommend. Narrow seats, little legroom, and no in seat entertainment. Just a screen at the front of the section of the cabin showing old films and Mr Bean.

Then again it may have improved by now.

Swerv-o

I flew with United a couple of years back (albeit from Heathrow to San Fransisco, then SF to Sydney) That was a much better flight than you have reported - in seat entertainment and I didn't have any problems with the legroom. My only gripe was that you had to pay the going rate for on flight alcohol, though other refreshments were free. But considering the flights were a lot cheaper than the Asian carriers, and I was getting double the baggage allowance, I didn't gripe too much. You can also fly this route with Air New Zealand, but they tend to be much more expensive than United, but I guess you get what you pay for.

I would recommend flying via SF instead of LA if you can, as SF is a pretty small airport, and it makes the transit fairly easy. Not that I've been to LAX, but apparently it's huge and very easy to lose baggage etc if you only have a short transit. This doesn't happen at SFO. SFO also has a great transit thing into the city, so if you have a reasonable length transit, you can go and see some of the sights of the city. Next time I do it, I think I will book a longer stopover and have a couple of days to look around, instead of the scant number of hours I had!

It's definitely worth going via the US as the increased baggage allowance is a real bonus. I was able to bring stuff with me that I would have otherwise left at home.

Buzzy-Bee (a long time poster on here and long time US flight advocate) did the US thing too - he took a couple of stops over on his trip and made quite a trip out of it.

HTH


S

wannabauzzienurse

I flew last year with air new zealand, heathrow-LA-auckland-cairns, think it was about 700GBP and booked it with flight centre.

Phil K

Hi,

We have just returned from a round trip to Oz via the US. We flew from Heathrow with BA to Los Angeles then stayed 5 days and did Disney then from LAX to Brisbane with Qantas, then coming back we flew from Sydney to San Francisco and stayed 3 weeks before coming home with BA to Heathrow. The quality of the flights was much the same for BA & Qantas (747-400) with the food being a bit naff but I never really like in flight meals.

We did all this in the school holiday period so flights were £4000 for 2 adults and 1 child and we booked with our local travel agent who sorted everything for us.

Hope that helps

All the best
Phil K

Dorothy

We did Air Canada Toronto to San Fran - NEVER FLY AC AGAIN - then Air New Zealand from SFO to Auckland then Auckland to Adelaide. Air Canada was absolute shit, but it was really cheap, so we didn't mind the 5 hours of crap. Air New Zealand was absolutely great SFO-AUK. Brand new plane, good service, lots of leg room and nice wide seats. AUK-ADL was an older plane, but still great service and good food.
As we didn't have the UK-North America leg of the trip it was probably cheaper than what you'll pay, ut for 2 adults and 2 kids it was just under $6000 Canadian. That works out to about $3000 GBP. We booked directly with the airlines as we found the best prices online with ANZ.

We also stopped in San Fran for a while, so add in the cost of the hotel. Like Swervo said, though, San Francisco is much better for transit than LAX. There is a really good bus service into the city.

Mikeyc

British Airways and Qantas (UK – LAX – OZ)
United Airlines (UK-USA-OZ)
Air New Zealand (UK-LA-NZ-OZ)
Air Canada (UK-Vancouver-OZ)
American Airlines & Qantas (UK-USA-OZ)
Air Tahiti Nui (UK-Paris-LA-Tahiti-OZ)

You can also do a mix of airlines, like... Virgin Atlantic to the states and then Qantas, United or V Australia down to Oz, will usualy be more expensive though - although you should look into the Virgin one as V Australia starts flights in December from LAX to SYD, they will code share with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America and Virgin Blue, so you could fly UK - USA with Virgin Atlantic and then USA to OZ on V Australia, all on the one ticket.

Good Luck

Mikey

Katehn

Hi, We booked our tickets with Travelmood, flying with British Airways and Quantas.

Gatwick - Orlando (holiday at Disney)
Orlando - New York ( 3 day visit)
NY - Los Angeles - Brisbane
We had a good experience traveling with both air lines, The movie choice was good for the kids.

It cost us just over 4000 pounds ( 2 adult and 3 children)

lesleys

We flew Air NZ via LA, Cook Islands and Auckland to Brisbane. Very good on leg-room, on time, quality rather than glitz. Much preferable to BA/Qantas/United.

Damson

If you can possibly avoid BA then do, although they do have a very large proportion of flights to the US. I say this because they provide diabolical service. We've flown with them 8 times and vowed we never would again. The staff are so up themselves and consider it a real bind if you ask them for something. If you're with kids, forget it.

ACE

Spot on.

AberJazz

Hello

I'm a big fan of flying via the states as well! My wife really suffers from jet lag, however if we fly via the states to oz its a lot better for her as well which is a great bonus for us.

We like to fly from Heathrow to San Fran - stop for a day or two as a break, shower, feel refreshed and human again (and its a day time flight as well).

Then we normally fly to NZ and stop for a week either in Auckland or Christchurch and then eventually fly to Sydney.

We have stopped doing the all in one go, as we prefer to break up the flight and enjoy a couple of days on route, this makes all the difference to us.

The luggage allowance is brilliant and we normally fly Air New Zealand if we can get a deal, if not then its Virgin to San Fran and then Air NZ to Sydney.

Have a look at this website for cheap flights via the states to oz www.kayak.co.uk and select multi-city and enter your dates, then normally recommend www.cheaptickets.com and we have had some great deals when you consider the number of flights/stops we normally take to get to Oz.

Therefore our recommendation is to break the flight up and turn the flight into a mini-holiday rather than an endurance test

Hope you enjoy your trip down under

AberJazz

TrickyTree

We did England to Oz via the US mainly for the increase in baggage allowance which was 2 x 32kg per person back in the day (2004).

London to San Fran - BA
San Fran to Vegas - AA
Vegas to LA - AA
LA to Brisbane - QANTAS

Spread over about 1.5 weeks with all the flights being acceptable plus we had a holiday to break up the whole process.

In fact I am flying to Seattle in 2 weeks time for work plus tagging a long weekend in Vegas while im over there!

BATS666

£4,000 for 3 people ??!
Strewth, for that u coulda paid the excess baggage and gone direct in 20 hours and still saved money.
I guess the US route is for those that -
1. want to holiday on the way &
2. don't mind spending the extra money (flights & accommodation).
Baggage allowance doesn't really come into it when it can cost so much more.....and isn't really an option if you're heading for west coast Oz.
When a 20 kg suitcase on Excess Baggage airfreight is just over £100 (incl insurance) why go to all that bother? You're not actually saving anything.
Oh and I would NOT recommend United if you fly via USA. My sis-in-law is a flight attendant with them and even SHE says they are crap. (and they lost my bags the last time I flew with them.) :curse:

tinkerbelle146hp

we flew in August with United to Los Angeles, stayed 5 days then flew los angeles to Sydney with united again.I really recommend them, we flew with 6 and 2 yr old as well.We had 8 bags at 23kgs, a pushchair, car seat, lap top bag and 4 bits of hand luggage.
We did online check in 24hrs before and printed off boarding passes, went straight to another queue in LHR with no one waiting, to process our bags, took us 10 minutes to complete check in from start to finish!!We were offered an upgrade to economy plus for 4 of us for £288, did not do as we thought we would do on longer flight.
We have flown with BA and Virgin and United were much better, loads of drinks, you did have to pay for alcohol on flight but we never drink alcohol on board so for us it did not matter.
Full size cans of drink not those iddy biddy mixer tins......help yourself to chocolate and pretzels in the galley all the way through the flight, my son sat in his car seat on the plane which was a godsend as he was much more secure.
On the longer trip as we had just flown to LA with them that week, we did online check in, and no upgrade offered was bit bummed but thought we would just get on with it, it was a night flight so hopefully kids would sleep.
checking luggage was the same, in fact we printed labels off for cases and someone stuck them on, and they were by now after shopping in USA slightly over weight.......maybe even a bit more than slightly, nothing said or charged.
When we got on flight to Sydney we had already been upgraded to the economy plus so we had 8 extra inches of leg room......for FREE!!!!!
We had fantastic experience with united and they were great for kids not to mention that for once meals were edible.....