1. Look Online For New Seats Just After Midnight

At midnight, most airlines will clear out any tickets from their system that have been booked but not paid for by the due date. So a few minutes past 12 (in the time zone of the airline’s head office), you may find some new seats for sale that weren’t there at 11:59.

2. Take Advantage Of “Secret Sales”

Although it can be tempting to ask travel agents to book it all for you, the truth is that sometimes airlines need to get rid of seats urgently, yet cannot advertise this fact to avoid looking bad.

Qantas Plane At Sydney Airport. Photo: Shayan.

This is known as a “secret sale”. The trick is to ring Qantas (0845 7 747 767) or British Airways (0870 850 9 850) directly to find out the unadvertised ultra-cheap fares from London to Sydney.

3. Look For “Copycat Discounts”

Also keep in mind that when one airline announces a sale, the other airlines will often copy them. This is known as “copycat discounting”. The idea here is that you keep an eye on the other airlines for a few days whenever one of their competitors has announced a seat sale.

4. Consider Flying Birmingham – Sydney Instead

Another option is to find cheap international flights from Birmingham, England to Sydney. If you are in London, you could save some money if you take a bus or train to Birmingham that meets connecting flights to Australia.

5. Ask A Travel Agent To Match An Online Price

Find a great deal online, and then take it to one of the many cheap travel agents. Travel agents have lost a fair amount of business to the internet, and they are keen to do business with you. By dealing with one of the cheap travel agents in your area, you have a point of contact should anything go wrong.

Which Airlines Fly LAX – Sydney?

Both Qantas and United Airways fly the LAX – Sydney route. A third airline, V Australia, will also fly this route from the the 15th of December 2008.

Subscribe To Updates From The Airlines (Sale News)

Keeping in touch with airline fare sales is a great way to make sure you get cheap tickets from LAX – Sydney.

Simply subscribe to the updates via email from each of the airlines mentioned above.

Cash In Airline Miles – Even If You’re Not A United Airlines Frequent Flyer

You can fly to Sydney from LAX using your airline frequent flyer miles – even if you’re not a United member.

You simply use miles from airlines that are in the same miles network as United or Qantas.

If you’ve got Air Canada miles for example, you can use these on United flights. They’re both part of the Star Alliance frequent flyer network.

Similarly, if you’ve got American Airlines miles, you can use these on Qantas flights to Sydney. This is because American Airlines and Qantas are both part of the OneWorld frequent flyer network.

However, delays have meant that February 28 2009 is a more realistic launch date for V Australia.

The first V Australia flights will be from Sydney to Los Angeles – the only destination V Australia have announced so far.

You’ll be more likely to get cheap tickets from Sydney to LA on V Australia than on the other two carriers who fly this route: United Airways and Qantas.

However, as opposed to Qantas and United Airlines, V Australia are a no-frills airline, which means you’ll be paying for your meals and other in-flight amenities (no, not to use the bathroom **cough cough famous Hollywood actor cough cough**).

V Australia will also collect passengers from other Australian cities and non-capital city destinations en-route to Sydney and then LAX.

The full list of V Australia pick-up points is as follows: Adelaide, Albury, Ballina Byron, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Coffs Coast, Darwin, Fraser Coast, Gold Coast, Hobart, Launceston, Mackay, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Rockhampton, Sydney, Sunshine Coast and Townsville. Note that V Australia do not operate domestic flights between these Australian cities at this stage.

What do I mean? Simple. There will be many planes bringing people from Sydney to Beijing for the Olympic Games (August 8 – 24, 2008).

Many of these planes will leave empty. Grab a cheap flight to Sydney from Beijing on one of these empty flights. (You can also use this trick to get a low cost flight from Beijing to anywhere else in the world).

If you want a discount flight from Sydney to Beijing, wait until after the Games have finished on August 24, 2008.

There’ll be a lot of new Beijing hotels and restaurants who can’t cope with the sudden tourist exodus at the end of the Games.

There’ll be cheap package deals for China everywhere you look.

Which Airlines Fly Sydney – Beijing?

Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines (JAL), Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airlines, Asiana Airlines and China Eastern Airlines all fly from Sydney to Beijing.

Cheap flights Sydney – Shanghai

Not going to Beijing? Avoiding the tourist hell of the Olympics?

The airlines who fly from Sydney to Shanghai are Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Thai Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Asiana Airlines and Royal Brunei Airlines.

Cheap Flights Sydney – Guangzhou

If you’re looking for a cheap flight from Sydney to Guangzhou, these are the airlines you’ll want: Qantas, Japan Airlines (JAL), Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airlines and both Southern China Airlines and China Southern Airlines (note that these are two different airlines).

Return flights are reasonably priced. For example, you could catch an economy class flight from Sydney to Macau in August for AUD $788 (return) including all taxes.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to purchase your meals and drinks separately. (JetStar and Tiger Airways also operate on the user-pays model for meals and drinks).

Viva Macau’s entry into the discount flights market in Australia follows hot on the heels of Tiger Airways arrival in Australia. However, Tiger Airways do not fly to Sydney at this point in time (although you can fly Tiger Airways from Macau to Darwin or Perth).

Gambling Holidays In Macau

Macau is a former Portuguese colony that is now owned by China. It’s known for its casinos and gambling. Viva Macau (and others) even go so far as to label Macau the “Las Vegas” of Asia.

So never mind the staggering fact that we have 10% of the world’s poker machines in the Australian state of New South Wales, head on over to Macau for a gambling holiday! Of course, if you’re going to Macau for the exciting mix of Portuguese and Chinese culture, then that’s a different story.

Read on to find out how to get cheap tickets from Melbourne to Sydney or even Perth to Sydney.

• Book online. Virgin Blue offers a $10 AUD saving per flight leg if you book online, as opposed to calling their call centre to book. That’s $20 AUD saved per return flight. Worth a trip to the internet cafe or the computer in your hostel? Definitely. Other airlines have similar policies.
• Use Webjet (an online service that compares all three major airlines) to find the cheapest flights available.
• Sign up for the airlines’ (Qantas, Virgin Blue and Jetstar) newsletters, which often advise of 24 hour sales and other discounts.
• Visit the VirginBlue website between 12 and 1 pm each weekday for their one-hour specials.
• Book as far in advance of your flight date as you can. Generally speaking, the closer you book to your flight date, the more expensive your flight will be.
• Fly midweek if you can. Fares are often cheaper midweek than at the weekends (which in “airline-speak” usually means Thursday until Monday).

Review Of The 3 (Soon To Be 4) Domestic Airlines In Australia

The three domestic airlines in Australia are Qantas, Virgin Blue and JetStar (which is owned by Qantas). A fourth domestic airline, Tiger Airways, should be starting up around August 2007. Read a review of each below.

Qantas

Qantas is the airline famous around the world for its impeccable safety record. Qantas also have the best customer service out of all the Australian domestic airlines. They treat you like you’re their customer, not like you’re their best friend. The Qantas frequent flyer program is also linked to many other international airlines via the “OneWorld” miles network. This means that you can earn miles to use on American Airlines, British Airways, Aer Lingus, Cathay Pacific, FinnAir, Iberia, LanChile and several others whenever you fly Qantas. The flip side of this is that you can use miles gained on those other airlines (American Airlines etc) to fly in Australia for free. Basically, if you see a Qantas ticket at a good price, take it.

VirginBlue

Virgin Blue is a low-cost no-frills airline. VirginBlue tickets are often cheaper than Qantas tickets. Virgin Blue has a number of international partners, and you can spend points that you’ve gained with Malaysian Airlines, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiian Airlines and Pacific Blue / Polynesian Blue on Virgin Blue flights to Sydney. Similarly, any points you earn by flying Virgin Blue to Melbourne or any other Australian cities can be redeemed with the above airlines.

JetStar

JetStar are a no-frills budget airline owned by Qantas. There’s a few reasons I prefer not to fly JetStar. The first reason is that if you arrive at the check-in counter less than 30 minutes before the departure time, JetStar will cancel your ticket. If you underestimate the time it takes to reach Sydney Airport or Sydney traffic is “doing its thing”, that’s it. You’ve lost your ticket. Gone. Nada. Zip.

The second reason why I shy away from Jetstar is that I suspect their flights are cancelled more often than other airlines. However, unlike with Qantas, where you’d have a half an hour, or an hour wait until the next departure, Jetstar usually have a two hour wait between flights. There’s not all that much to do at Sydney Airport for two hours.

The third reason I’d rather fly Qantas or Virgin Blue is that JetStar doesn’t fly to Melbourne International Airport when flying to Melbourne. Instead, they use the tiny Avalon Airport, which has no decent facilities and is an extra 20 minutes out of Melbourne. In all fairness though, Jetstar often do have the cheapest domestic flights in Australia. If you’re looking to save money, you will probably end up flying Jetstar.

Tiger Airways

(UPDATE 9 FEB 2007): Tiger Airways have just announced that they will begin to offer cheap domestic flights to Sydney later this year. Tiger Airways currently offer one of the cheapest flights to Australia, a $21 AUD ticket to Perth from Singapore. If we use that as a rough guide, Tiger Airways should be quite cheap into and out of Sydney.

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting to get a Tiger Airways flight to Sydney if you’re already in the country. This is because it will take six months or more for Tiger to get their licence. However, for those coming to Australia in August 2007 or later, you may find Tiger are offering very cheap domestic flights to Sydney.