Holy Smokes: United Airlines US-Australia From $385 Roundtrip!

Yesterday I wrote about some amazing airfares on United Airlines between the US and Australia.

The fares were ~ $550 roundtrip from many of Delta’s hubs — not a mistake fare, but clearly a fare war aimed at Delta. Those fares are still available.

  • The fares appear available through at least end of November for the outbound flight.
  • You can’t return until 10 days from your departure to qualify for the fare.
  • Fares are non-refundable and there’s a $300 change fee.


View of the Sydney Opera House from the Park Hyatt Sydney

Fares work from Delta’s hubs at:

  • Minneapolis
  • Seattle
  • Salt Lake City
  • Atlanta
  • Detroit

And travel is permitted to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

SecretFlying points out that you can get the fare down as low as $380 by starting in any of these cities and returning to Los Angeles.

That appears to only be available for trips that depart May 1 through June 21 or August 1 through August 31.

This is a sample Atlanta – Melbourne and return to Los Angeles:

Here’s a breakdown of the fare.

Note that the return Melbourne – Los Angeles segment is just $36! Also note that the fare basis is L on the outbound and G on the return, both of which earn 100% of flown miles when crediting to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen US-Australia pricing this cheap.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. I looked yesterday morning and found tickets for $525 roundtrip to Brisbane. I sent the itinerary to my wife to look at and the fares were $1125. I looked again today (on a different computer and different browser) and the fares are all between $1100-$1500. What do I do? Are they no longer offering this? I served a two-year service mission in Australia and I desperately want to go back and take my wife.

  2. Before going back in to airline web site (or any site for that matter) to book the great deal you found, make sure you have newly cleared your computer cache for all and any cookies. Airlines know you are interested now in traveling and do jack up the prices accordingly. Its the new way of ‘individual pricing’. We have saved thousands in airline travel knowing this.

  3. Do you think these fares will last till Oct.? My wife and I are going to Australia for a couple months (Oct – Nov.) Would appreciate any info.

  4. Yeah, I’ve known about that for a while. But my wife was on her computer at work and I’ve used totally separate computers at school. Clearing the cache and cookies would have nothing to do with this.

  5. Do you know if you can book this, skip the first two legs and just catch your flight straight out of LAX? That would be awesome!

  6. It looks like all of the fares are gone…unless I’m just not having luck finding them. I guess I missed out. 🙁

  7. Has anyone been able to find any fares at a reasonable price? I saw one from Seattle for $269 yesterday and when I got home it was way more expensive. I can no longer find any of these rates, I’m assuming they’re all gone.

  8. Maybe I’m too late, but I can’t find these fares (through Kayak, through United) today from SLC to MEL or SYD, then back to LAX. Nothing under $1300 really. Same for R/T SLC to MEL or SYD. Can anyone confirm that this deal’s over, or whether I’m doing something wrong?

  9. As a American Australian, I was very excited to read this post this morning. That being said I have proceeded to try to find these prices and have failed. Is this no longer relavent information?

  10. Is anyone still seeing these fares? Everytime I search, they show in the $1000 range

  11. I’ve looked on Orbitz, Kayak, etc. and have tried different dates, cleared my cache, different starting points (ATL > MEL, MEL > LAX; ATL >SYD, SYD > LAX).

    However I am located in Sydney and looking for flights for my mom, who is based in Atlanta, to come visit me. When I switch to the US version with US pricing on all of these sites do they track my IP address and price higher? I’d love to take advantage of this deal and have my mom be able to visit me!!

  12. On Monday night I found $661 LAX-HBA (Hobart, Tasmania) return via Kayak. I tried to comment on this site, but haven’t seen it. I was shopping in the evening, PST.

  13. Yeah, no, there are no flights for anywhere near that cost range available from Minneapolis to Australia.

Comments are closed.