Best way to get to the USA in December 2018?

Flights & Airfares
, , ,
1

Hi All,

I am planning on travelling to the USA in December 2018 and returning to Australia in January 2019. I am hoping to redeem Qantas points for this and flying business or first class. I’ve had a look on the Qantas website and note there isn’t much availability at all. Following recommendations on here I’ve had a look on the British Airways site and they also had little to no availability,

Few points:

  • Looking for two tickets one for myself and one for a friend.
  • My friend is a Bronze Qantas member with around 250,000 points and I am a Gold member with around 450,000 points.
  • I understand redeeming in December / January is difficult and trying to redeem to the USA is hard at the best of times so I’m happy to fly via Japan, Hong Kong etc to the USA and return via that way.
  • I’m based in Melbourne but I’m happy to fly to another Australian state (paying) and redeem from there to the USA.
  • Ideally I would leave early to middle of December 2018 and return early to mid January 2019.

Hoping someone can help with any recommendations or advice!

Thanks in advance!

Kind Regards,

Thomas

2

Hi tross888,

I’m glad you understand it is going to be challenging.

You might have to position yourself to HKG, TYO or other major hubs to find anything to USA.

I could find some flights from HKG.

So you could either get a cheap flight to HKG or pay for one of the great deals with Virgin Australia to HKG that is running at the moment.

Have a play with Qantas website departing from HKG or TYO and see whether it is suitable.

Good luck.

3

Hi,

I have just booked a similar holiday for 2 adults and 2 children (12,14) but that’s four adults in flyer world. We are flying BNE-HKG-SFO 28 Dec then YVR-HNL 19 Jan then paid HNL-BNE 25 Jan.

There are currently flights to SFO from MEL-SYD-SFO and SYD-SFO on Dec 12th, or if you really get stuck get to AKL and there are flights from there.

Coming home you can get from SEA-HNL (Alaskan) or YVR-HNL (WestJet) or YVR-SEA-HNL anytime in January. From HNL you can either fly with points via HNL-AKL(QF) on 25 Jan and then AKL-MEL or pay for JetStar HNL-SYD.

Just did a search at 2000 on 11-Apr-2018 and could book these flights for 3 people.

Flight 1:

Melbourne  to  San Francisco

 Depart

Wed 12 Dec 18

 Passengers

3 Adults
Flight 2:

Seattle  to  Honolulu

 Depart

Wed 16 Jan 19

 Passengers

3 Adults
Flight 3:

Honolulu  to  Auckland

 Depart

Fri 25 Jan 19

 Passengers

3 Adults
Flight 4:

Auckland  to  Melbourne

 Depart

Sat 26 Jan 19

 Passengers

3 Adults
There is always the option of going the long way around look 308 days out for EK via MEL-DXB-SEA for 60,000 pts each or MEL-DXB-SFO for 75000.

Good luck, think out of the square, sometimes it is easier to get a direct flight to JFK from OZ for 60000 pts then get a cheap flight back to the west coast.

 

4