As part of American and Qantas working more closely together, American will be launching Los Angeles – Sydney service (not yet bookable) and Qantas will return to the San Francisco – Sydney market.
The Qantas flight, which begins operating December 18, is now loaded in schedules and bookable. And business class award space on the flight is really good. (HT: The Forward Cabin) I’m confident it will not stay that way so if you want business class awards to Australia, book now (using either American or Alaska miles).
Australia is one of the absolute toughest awards in the world to book, so any time good space opens it’s worth paying attention.
Here’s a look at 2 business class award seats in March (a month chosen at random).
For some reason this space does not appear at AA.com or Alaska’s website. You’ll need to call if you want to book it.
Pricing:
- American charges 62,500 miles each way for business class.
- Alaska Airlines charges 55,000 miles each way for business class.
Is there space in F?
There is no F on this route, it’s operated by a 744.
Can you use avios to book these flights?
@Nick you can but it’ll be quite costly…
@Gary, thoughts on the seat? Read some views and it seemed to be hit or miss.
Just called AA and the agent was unable to find any QF business class availability on 3/1 or 3/15. Not sure if the space was scooped up already or the agent didn’t know what she was doing, but definitely a bummer.
What tool are you using to show the availability for March ’16?
I saw space in March on Expert Flyer. Couldn’t find one seat back to USA after new year. Bummer!
Qantas’ own website does not show business class availability for the dates you mention.
Nor does BA’s.
Curiously, QF’s website shows that Premium Economy is available on the route for the exact dates that you have posted above. Could it be that ExpertFlyer got the booking classes wrong?
Can you confirm anyone successful in booking the above route in business?
QF sent an email out today that bookings were open and it says their codeshare on the AA SYD flight will open in coming weeks.
I can confirm I booked on this new route in C today. AA.com didn’t show anything but QF website did. I called up AA and they were able to do it. Ticket is to JFK, and they said they couldn’t see anything, so I asked to just look for seats to SFO, which they found, then added the AA segment to JFK.
@SG: Thanks for the update! Will go back to calling AA.
Would we be able to use this flight to connect to New Zealand? I’m right in remembering that you can’t have a stopover in Sydney even if we do fly to New Zealand though?
A question for the experts on AA’s routing rules about connections. Domestic have to be within 4 hours and international within 24 hours. What about arriving internationally and connecting to a domestic flight, which one applies?
thanks!
@SG – 24 hours for all connections if it’s an international itinerary.
This availability was searched via Qantas website and was accurate at the time I posted. It could be gone.
No stopovers, without spending additional miles, but a connection to New Zealand is fine
International itinerary 23h59m connection is fine even within the US
I used Award Nexus to find availability. We booked over Memorial Day 2016. Thanks for posting this, Gary!
If I find availability on the 19th to the 29th of June 2016 on Qantas, can I call AA and book it even though their site only goes out to about the 11th of June?
@Charles Dashkowitz – no, American only has access to schedules 331 days out
Thanks Gary, that’s what I thought so I’ll have to check in a few weeks and hope that those are still available. Keep up the great info!
Just called AA and the agent at first wasn’t able to find any flight on the date I wanted, then I told her the flight number that I found by searching on Qantas website myself, then she was able to find them and booked for me the direct flight from SFO to SYD. outbound in late March and return in Mid Apr.