Qantas companion sale – two for the price of one – no, not really

I remember when a companion sale was really a companion sale. Years ago Thai Airways used to effectively have a two-for-one business class sale. Admittedly the sale price was set at the un-discounted full Business Class airfare, but you still got two-for-one.

Companion Sale – doesn’t mean two-for-one anymore. Actually, to be honest, it hasn’t for some time. Qantas is having a Premium Companion Sale until 16 October (next Monday) unless it sells out earlier.

Prices are not drop-dead-can’t-resist, but they are not bad, although there are date restrictions. Here’s a shot of the samples from Sydney provided in the email:

Here’s a sample of the prices for business fares to London, with the date restrictions. Note that the cheap fare they quote is for the middle of winter in London, and the rest are in the slightly off-peak times. No surprises there.

Compare those fares to this grab from Google Flights for the winter period.

That cheap AU$4,464 fare disappeared before my eyes. It briefly showed for a British Airways flight (and I might even go on BA at that price!), and then disappeared never to be seen again. This is the actual results screen today at about 13:40 AESST:

I’ve travelled on that Vietnam airlines flight, and now that they have made the flight all on 787’s with all aisle access seats, I’d be tempted. However the layovers (8 hours one way, and 15 hours on the return) are a bit onerous – unless you break the flight. It’s worth looking around at alternative dates, as sometimes they run A350’s, and the layovers are different.

I did a quick search, and admittedly it is a few days since they announced the sale, but I couldn’t find anything like the AU$5999 Business fare return to London. Best I could do over the Christmas period was this:

. . . and that is one way via Melbourne and Dubai. The upside is that they are both on A380‘s.

Anyhoo – at that price, I would head back to Mr. Google Flights and try for anyone of the combo fares offered – depending on my preferred stopover. Maybe this option, which would put me on Thai Airways (which I would love for nostalgic reasons), it would get me on the old-fashioned sloping business seats for the short 9 hour hops on two 747’s and on their new A380 for the 13-hour segments. Now that would be a nice experience. Maybe I should do Xmas in Europe again  . . .

Final Word

There may still be bargains to have on this route, or on any of the other routes covered in the Companion Sale. But for me, it looks like this sale might be like a Donald Trump tweet: #FakeNews.

Share any of your successes below.