Where best to buy tickets from Calgary to Melbourne?

November 3, 2008 3:19 PM

What is the best way to book a cheap flight to Australia from Calgary?

I have never traveled overseas before, and other than expedia, travelocity, and checking out Aeroplan's website (which shows NO flights between Calgary and Melbourne), how do I go about finding really cheap flights for 4 people to Australia?


Are there tricks? Some have told me to fly to LA, and then leave LA to go to Melbourne from there. Keeping in mind, I will have 3 children with me, what is the best plan of attack to save as much money as possible?

posted by burhan to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

I would use a ticket aggregator like Kayak to find the best deal. Here's Calgary to Melbourne. Yes, you will probably be routed through LA or another west coast hub.
posted by nitsuj at 3:25 PM on November 3, 2008

Also: when are you going, and what's cheap? If you found something for less than $1,000 USD I would jump on it QUICK. Expect to pay between $1,000-$1,700 per ticket depending on when you fly.
posted by nitsuj at 3:26 PM on November 3, 2008

I've just recently booked a flight from Toronto to Australia. It's true that there are cheap flights from L.A. (and Qantas has a rather cool flight pass system that you might want to check out). I found that the two best fares for me were on Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines. Cathay offers free side trips from Hong Kong to destinations like Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Bangkok. With Japan, you can spend another $150 and stopover in Tokyo. I went with Japan airlines in the end because I wanted to do a stopover in Tokyo rather than go to Bangkok (see my posting history for a question I asked about that). But I could have gone the other way, too.

I found the fares through Travel Cuts. I'm a student, but I don't think that I had to be a student to get the fares. Give your local Travel Cuts a call and see what they can set up for you. The Japan Airlines fare I got was a contract fare they have with Travel Cuts (so it's not going to show up on online searches, and they have a limited number of seats at that fare). They quote you a base price of $1588, but it's about $1000 more when you factor in stopover fee (which is optional) and the rather insane fares and taxes and go with flying these days. I found that the advantage of flying on one ticket (rather than having to fly to L.A., then get on a plane) is that if plans change you only have to change one flight, and if your flight is late and you miss your connection, it's the airline's problem, not yours.

Hope that's helpful. Email or MefiMail me if you need more info.
posted by Dasein at 3:32 PM on November 3, 2008

I asked a very similar question a few years ago. My only advice as someone who has made the trip twice so far, is that travelling Qantas is really worth whatever extra amount it might cost, it's a truly deent airline or was the last twi times that I flew them.
posted by jessamyn at 3:53 PM on November 3, 2008

I'm in Banff, I'll ask one of the dozen Aussies tonight what their preferred means are. Stay tuned.
posted by furtive at 5:22 PM on November 3, 2008

Aussies all said the same thing: Check on Kayak and then double check with the airlines/flights it recommends to see if you can avoid fees.
posted by furtive at 8:28 PM on November 3, 2008

every answer was awesome! Thank you MeFites!

-B
posted by burhan at 9:21 AM on November 5, 2008