Australia's flag airline Qantas is celebrating its 100th birthday in the best possible way: Selling off $200 round-trip tickets from the U.S. to Australia this week.
The doors on this sale aren't wide open – you'll have to be strategic and fast to a dirt-cheap ticket to Australia. Just 100 lucky travelers snagged tickets from Los Angeles (LAX) to Australia on Monday, with another 100 up for grabs from San Francisco (SFO) on Tuesday and tickets from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) on Wednesday. But the airline has one last hurrah Thursday: Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) to Brisbane (BNE).
You'll need to be both lightning-fast, patient and lucky to score a ticket. Here's how it works.
Every day from Monday, Nov. 18, through Thursday, Nov. 21, Qantas will sell one-way tickets between select U.S. cities and Australia for $100 each way when you book a round-trip fare. Each day, 100 tickets will go on sale starting at 5 p.m. EST/2 p.m. PST. When they sell out, they're gone.
And you can only book through Qantas' Birthday Sale page. So be sure to check the page right at 5 p.m. EST for your chance at a cheap trip to Australia. Only a handful of dates are available at this dirt-cheap rate, so watch that page when the sale begins for details on availability.
The rush of visitors appeared to crash Qantas' search engine multiple times this week. If you want the chance at a deal of a lifetime, be patient and keep trying.
Needless to say, a $200 round-trip flight to Australia is a steal. We found some cheap fares to Australia last year through our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal notification service, but booking one of these fares would take the cake.
Bottom Line
With a lot of speed and even more luck, you could fly down under and back for $200. Make sure to watch the Qantas Birthday Sale page like a hawk!
Do you think there will be a comparable points/miles price for these flights? Or cash only? Just wondering.
I highly doubt it. It appears you need to book directly through the Qantas site, and any points transfers wouldn’t be worth the trouble even if they work.
Worth it to buy first and figure out the details later!! We have 24 hours to cancel for a full refund, correct?
Correct!
Did anyone get a ticket?
The site keeps crashing for me.
Any idea what time frame to search when it opens up?
Stay tuned to the birthday sale page – when more tickets are released, Qantas will spell out exactly which dates qualify for the low pricing.
The departure dates and departure and arrival cities are posted each day in a table on the bday sale landing page
I got to the point of “Thanks for confirming your fare. The passenger page is next” then it booted me out to a system error 🙁
Picked fare; dates; cities, etc. I was so excited!
This is nothing but a scam or marketing gimmick for them to sell more ad space on their website from their sponsors as traffic gets overflooded on their website. I’ve now wasted 5 hours of my life over the last two days trying to book any of these deals and kept getting error after error after error on their bookings page. Once the flights sell out, they have the next 10 tickets available at about $250 each way, which isn’t horrible, but my guess is people end up booking those because they’re let down by not getting the $100 flights. Smart move by Qantas, but I’m not buying in anymore.