Australia business class awards are some of the toughest around. That was true before the pandemic. It’s even more true now, with flights full generally and with not all service restored yet. For instance, American Airlines isn’t flying to Sydney again yet. Add in that Australians were banned from even leaving their country for a year and a half, and demand has been unprecedented.
I managed to score Air Canada business class saver seats for my trip Down Under in June, but that was one of a couple of times when availability seemed to pop up as a glitch. If you want to travel in a premium cabin to Australia it is very very hard right now. But there is one way. And some of you will find this amazing.
Fiji Airways has great award availability right now, February – June 2023. This award space was first spotted by Thrifty Traveler‘s premium airfare deal alert service.
- Los Angeles – Fiji and San Francisco – Fiji
- Fiji – Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland, New Zealand
That means connecting on the way to Australia, but you can also book the trip with a stopover in Fiji! Alaska Airlines doesn’t even charge extra miles for this.
Here’s February availability for two passengers from Los Angeles to Nadi, Fiji though note that some dates have more than 2 business class award seats available.
Here’s availability for two out of San Francisco, a flight that only operates 3 times a week.
And Nadi, Fiji to Sydney for 2:
Nadi to Auckland:
Consider flying Los Angeles to Fiji, stopping over, and then traveling to Melbourne – and booking a return from Sydney.
Ways to book this:
- Alaska Airlines: 55,000 miles each way and a free stopover (even on a one way award), and they’ll include an Alaska Airlines connecting flight to San Francisco or Los Angeles in the award if saver space is available
- American Airlines: 80,000 miles each way, whether to Fiji or to Australia. If you stop over in Fiji it is 80,000 miles to get there and then 30,000 miles to Australia/New Zealand. American will including domestic connecting flights in both the U.S. (American/Alaska) and in Australia (Qantas) at this price, provided that the origin and destination cities have a published Fiji Airways routing.
- Bilt Rewards: transfer points to American
- Capital One, Citibank, American Express: transfer points to Qantas which charges 82,000 miles each way
Half of Fiji Airways flights out of LAX are operated by an Airbus A350 with lie flat (Collins Aerospace Super Diamond) business seats. Their Airbus A330 business seat is angled. Some of their regional flights from Fiji to Australia and New Zealand are operated by 737 MAXs (these flights are short) and others by A330s, while once a week they’re currently running an A350 to Sydney.
For this to be available in February is especially spectacular.
Don’t forget Vancouver’s new Fiji route starting this winter.
Economy on the MEL-NAN leg but that’s OK. Better than my current MEL-SYD-HKG-LAX-MIA routing. And cheaper. Thanks.
I am trying to figure out inside Australia what routes FIJI actually offers if I book on american. I dont see MEL-SYD flights on FIJI website so I wonder.
i just checked all five months from every gateway and there was not a single flight with two biz seats lower than 445k miles RT per person. I have also been checking Europe next May and most flights across the pond are over 500k per person for biz class. . . . . What’s going on with AA?
@robertw – once you book the TPAC leg on Fiji through the AA website, call AA and add the Qantas leg MEL-SYD. I’ve done it many times, though I will note that I haven’t yet been able to add intra-Australia flights in January/February yet – they say it’s a Qantas issue. Not worried even if I have to buy it separately – it’s a cheap quick flight.
@MichaelWainstein – book LAX-Australia on the website and then call AA and add the flight from your city to LAX.
Was sad I had to cancel Tahiti trip (had perfectly aligned AF flights) for personal scheduling reasons. Now we’re going to Fiji instead. Rather pleased. One must always remember another deal or flight will come along. Never regret missing out on a specific deal.
Hi Gary, Thanks for all your postings… Just saw this and tried logging into AA, to get quotes for Feb 2023. No matter all different days, etc… MIA-Melbourne would show 80K at first, but always Main Cabin. Business was not offered as an offer. When I clicked on search by buss/1st, it would still be main cabin on flight out of MIA and then if I chose Buss on return to MIA, it went up to 510! I’m executive, with almost 1Mil miles. And no way will I go to Australia on main cabin. 🙂 What say you?
@CRT the issue may be MIA. Try searching originating in LAX or SFO and see. You might need to do a positioning flight as anything attached to MIA in the winter can skew your results.
Yes, I tried LAX, SFO, too. Tried going to Fiji instead of Melbourne
or Sydney.. Didn’t matter, as Michael W. above, buss not available at 80k. And 500k was for main cabin flying out there, with a buss return. Guess they pulled it out already. Too good of a deal I also tried going through Quantas website.. no go. Oh well, I tried.
Wrong info. I was looking into SYD flights also. If you can even find them i was getting Business seats at up to 920k RT. Now this is flying from yhe midwest, but it used to be about 250k RT
Once again airlines screwing their best customers.