Yrae Chronicles

All right, Sydney booked! The last little tail of the Japan flights are sorted. I've been checking Tiger and Jetstar every day, staring at their $79 fares and willing them to drop, and today Tiger had $30 fares, so hell yes I will jump on that thank you. I saw them at work at about 4pm, when the Monday and Sunday flights were both sold out (we're taking off first flight on Tuesday) but Saturday was still there, and by the time I got home at 5pm Saturday was also sold out. Thankfully the Friday flight takes off at 5:45pm so I can go straight after work on Friday night and have a couple of days in Sydney! And I can see my Alex while I'm there, too! WOO!

Sydney return for under $100, that's what I've been waiting for.

I always dither so much over plane flights .-.

So we have four(ish) domestic airlines in Australia. Qantas, who you may have heard of, the classiest and regarded as most expensive of the four. They serve you food whether you want it or not and include checked baggage and 10kg of carry on luggage and basically make you feel good. They charge for it, but because it's all automatically included they don't sneakily tack it on at the end. The fare you see is pretty close to the fare you pay. For this one, $262 return to Sydney.

Virgin (yes, that Virgin) used to be the budget new kid on the block but is now typically more expensive even than Qantas, often by $30-40 for a flight. I think I've only ever once been on Virgin. They're charging like $160 one way as the starting price, and this on their 'happy hour sale on now' pricing so screw you Virgin I'm not going any further than page one.

Then there's Jetstar, which is Qantas' budget arm (hence the four-ish). Usually about $30-40 cheaper than Qantas, but every now and then they just flip the tables on you and Qantas has cheaper flights which. Kinda defeats the purpose of the budget arm. Also Jetstar has SO many extras they tack on (it is, for example, $7.50 per flight extra to pay with a credit or debit card. No there's no other option for payment. So that's another $15 for a return trip right there) so that, if you were to tack on all the bits that Qantas gives you anyway, it'd be more than Qantas. Again, defeating the purpose of the budget arm. And since I'm going for two weeks in winter, I'll be wanting checked baggage this time, bringing it up to $209 return, which is pretty good for Sydney. You're doing all right if you can get it under $200 return, generally.

Finally Tiger, which was always the ultimate budget flight. Mum and I flew to Melbourne when they first started up for $9. That was it. No taxes fees or charges, just $9 one way. Both of us flew return to Melbourne for a grand total of $36. The bus from the airport to the hotel was more than that. Sure, the arrival hall in Melbourne was built of besser blocks and chicken wire with a portaloo at the back (this is no exaggeration) but we FELT like we'd paid nine frigging bucks for that flight and it was AWESOME. Obviously such fares didn't last, but before they were grounded a few years back you were basically looking at about $130 return to Sydney. Now it's $216, so, more than Jetstar.

When the difference between the super ultimate budget airline and the luxury give-you-everything-make-you-special airline isn't even $50 something be wrong. I'm not counting Virgin because they suck.

So basically my choices are between Qantas and Almost-Qantas. YEAH COMPETITION. I'm going to hold out and see what Jetstar does tomorrow. I think their super budget day is Friday, so we'll see what comes of that. See if I can get it under $200 return.

SYDNEEEEEYYYYYYY.