Finding Most Economical Ticket To Brisbane

[Miss Swan]

I"m leaving for Brisbane in July for a short break. Now struggling to find the most economical direct flight to Brissie. The cheapest option is of course Jetstar but looking at the flight timings (~S$600, overnight flight with 2 hours transit at Darwin), it's really going to play havoc on my sleep. Hardly desirable to look like a grouchy bear in front of my hosts who're fetching me *lol*

I've actually traipsed down to Chinatown to ask the travel agents around there on the fares. So far I got:
Emirates - S$980, but seats selling very quickly (might be gone by the time I book)
Qantas - $1060, my hosts are not encouraging after the recent spate of problems
SQ - S$1250, too pricey

Ideally I'm looking for a direct flight on any airline (save for Qantas) that goes around the range of $800-1000. So you folks know of any nice promotions/deals, or know of any travel agent with great hookups, please let me know!

Any tips would be greatly appreciated! I'm flexible on my departure date, as long as it hits my budget...

~MS

[Strong Eagle]

Why not Quantas?

[durain]

your best bet is to go online and check all the airlines.

[pakjohn]

I've had pretty good success with zuji.com R/T Vietnam for 105 SGD all inclusive; my last purchase.

Put in your trip details and note the low cost carriers. Before you book, go to the individual carrier web sites and look for better deals. You can often save 100 SGD by booking on the air carriers website but it's handy to use Zuji to find them for you. On occasion, zuji is cheaper than the airlines web sites.

[durain]

double check it with airfares.com.sg as well.

[Miss Swan]

Thanks for the fast replies!

Strong Eagle: Qantas in the past year has had flight boo-boo's as we all know. Wing, engine problems. My friends are fervently discouraging me to take that (subsequently it was found that the Qantas Quality Engineer was a fake)

durain: I've been to Zuji and Airfares.com.sg. Their rates are quite competitive but Zuji has no direct flight to Brisbane, while Airfares impose a maximum 28 day rule. I'm staying there 3 months.

pakjohn: Flights to nearby destinations would be more economical. Unfortunately Brisbane is an 8 hour flight away Also, Jetstar transits in Darwin at an ungodly 4am - plus I have to drag my humongous luggage out and check-in again. They have no internal luggage transfer for domestic flights (DW-BN).

I'll keep looking out though! Misa (Airfares) seems to have pretty good deals, might call them personally and check. Is it really that hard to find a ticket for less than a grand?

P.S. Since I'm travelling in July, I'd have thought that's a non-peak period.

[pakjohn]

pakjohn: Flights to nearby destinations would be more economical. Unfortunately Brisbane is an 8 hour flight away Also, Jetstar transits in Darwin at an ungodly 4am - plus I have to drag my humongous luggage out and check-in again. They have no internal luggage transfer for domestic flights (DW-BN).

My local destinations were just some examples; I also managed a r/t ticket to US, (22 hours, one stop) for 1500 SGD and used miles to upgrade to business. I used Zujii for the comparisons among air carriers but ended up booking the flight via the actual carriers website.

[Miss Swan]

Big thanks to pakjohn! Emirates website is offering S$915...have to grab that great offer before it disappears.

[pakjohn]

NP...

BTW, after booking be sure to choose your seat. For that long of a flight go to seatguru.com and find out what seats are the best and choose them on the carriers website. If you can't do it on their site, call the reservation number and ask for a good seat based on what you see at seat guru. Nothing worse than getting a middle seat near the toilet.

[QRM]

Everyone assumes the internet has the best deals, I just recently booked a multi stop ticket for my whole family heres what I found:

Online booking with the local carrier website cost 31k !!

Zuji came back with 18k there are cheaper 12k but with banana republic airlines, departing at 1am and changing not just planes but airports at 6am, when you have a 3 year old in tow not a great plan.

Logged on to a hong kong based local website got the flights down to 16k

Then just called local customer service number of a regional airline, and managed to get it down to 9k which i booked. They are exact same flights as the 18k one.

Worth calling around not just to the Singapore offices but also the airline office at your destinations. They often have a local promos going.

If you are doing a round the world or multi stop flights worth looking into Oneworld, my deal was kinda based on the oneworld asia pass promos. http://www.oneworld.com/

[2 Long]

Would you like to fill us in on your recent flights to/from Brisbane. Hope you went with a major carrier,cost abit more, but alot safer. Do not believe everything you read in the papers and especially friends, unless they are pilots in that airline. Cheers

[ksl]

Would you like to fill us in on your recent flights to/from Brisbane. Hope you went with a major carrier,cost abit more, but alot safer. Do not believe everything you read in the papers and especially friends, unless they are pilots in that airline. Cheers

Remote control planes are more reliable than what?, Though the controller may not be it's very common for pilots to fall asleep

[Vaucluse]

Would you like to fill us in on your recent flights to/from Brisbane. Hope you went with a major carrier,cost abit more, but alot safer. Do not believe everything you read in the papers and especially friends, unless they are pilots in that airline. Cheers

Please provide link for 'a lot' safer . . .