Qantas A380 deal: Fly Los Angeles (LAX) to Australia for less than $870

Qantas became the first airline to bring a commercial flight on an Airbus A380 to Los Angeles this morning. To celebrate this new age in luxe double-decker airplanes, Qantas is offering round-trip flights between Los Angeles and Australia for less than $1,000. Fly nonstop from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) or Brisbane (BNE) starting this week for $760 round trip, pre-tax. You’ll want to hurry to get the deal and look for flights QF 12 and 11 to fly on an actual Airbus A380 between LAX and SYD.

Deal: The promotion said that economy seats would be going for $380 each way with the lowest prices found Tuesdays-Thursdays. I tested flights this morning between LAX and SYD Nov. 6-18 and found the total price for one adult flying round trip to be $868 including taxes and fees. You could have up to two stopovers for $150 extra and date or re-routing charges were $200 per person. Flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Melbourne (MEL) or Cairns (CNS) started at just a little bit more at $430 each way, pre-tax, but I didn’t test them.

When: Book by Oct. 31, 2008, for travel Oct. 24-Nov. 17, 2008, or May 1-31, 2009

Caveat: There are a limited number of sale seats per flight and they are based on availability. Note that this also doesn’t mean that you will be flying on an Airbus A380. The sale is for Qantas flights operating 747 or A380 planes so check the itinerary and flight number. If you want to get on the A380, look for flights QF 12 and 11 between LAX and SYD.

Geek out: Economy seat stats are as follows — 31-inch seat pitch, seat width up to 18.1 inches, seat recline 6 inches, TV touch screen 10.6 inches. In addition to the regular food and beverage service, there are four self-service bars in economy offering a range of snacks and non-alcoholic cold drinks. Economy seats will also have PC power, USB, Internet ports, more than 1,000 on-demand entertainment options and WebMail and WebChat connectivity options.

Contact: Qantas Vacations, (866) 458-9348

If you ride the Qantas A380 from Los Angeles to Sydney, tell us what you liked and didn’t like about the new plane (and where you were sitting).

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Image: qantas.com.au]

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 20, 2008 at 11:21 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Deals, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice, Pacific & Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.