This week we speak to Travel Josh Engstrom from Liberty Travel about whether you should be booking travel and flights now, the latest schedules from the major airlines, updates, excitement, planning, and more!
Information is changing regularly so be sure to check back each week for updates.
Should I book now?
This is a question I get a lot, not just during Covid. A good rule of thumb is to book at least three months in advance. If your travel dates extend beyond the three months in advance, think about it like this: If you see a flight you like, and it’s at a price you can pay – just book it! Airlines are very flexible atm with date changes, so if you do need to tweak your dates at a later stage that is very doable!
There’s no real rhyme or reason to prices dropping or a sale coming out – so if you don’t get a sale this time, you’ll make it up with a great sale in the future – look at your travel spend as a continuum, rather than treating each trip separately. Some you’ll win BIG, others not so. It’s all about how you frame it – post purchase dissonance is so 2019! We have bigger fish to fry in 2020.
Availability over the next period (15th February – 1st March)
Plenty of economy seats!!! This is great news, As we move into March we see more and more options to get home. Giving people some more options is always a good thing. Prices are going to seem very reasonable after the heartache of the last two months, get in and snap them up if you are planning to go home that time NOW!
Why is it so hard to get to Perth?
Finally starting to see some flights into PER for NOV/DEC with Singapore Airlines. Great connections from NYC and LAX. Only Premium/Biz available – please reach out for help to book these.
We hope that pressure to continue to increase caps, letting anyone of us who wants to come home to be able to without all of the extra stress.
Why is it so hard to get into Brisbane/Cairns?
We are seeing options with Air NZ into BNE, this is great news that I would expect to continue to grow as an option for people. Flights are currently scattered through DEC, then more in JAN/FEB.
When can I fly into Melbourne again?
We are slowly starting to see arrivals. I read earlier this week Scoot are flying from Singapore into MEL, so that’s great news. Air NZ will start very soon too I’m sure, so watch this space!
Three-month outlook and holiday travel
Availability and Flights home at Xmas time is already incredibly tight. Decreased options, limited availability on those options, and general overall worldwide disruptions will make it very difficult to get home if you leave it too late.
Six-month flight outlook and travel
Let’s hope in the new year, we are better at living with the virus, are better at keeping virus caseloads down, and that the govt. takes strong action to allow its citizens to come home.
If you have the means to stay put into the new year, I expect with caps increasing or being cut altogether, we will be able to once again head home for whatever reason we like without severe financial and mental stress.
Where can you travel right now?
I get this question a lot and here are some options tailored to the US resident done by my work Liberty Travel – handy quick link to get started:
https://www.libertytravel.com/travel-articles/where-americans-can-travel-now
Australian flight and travel cap updates
Here’s an update about the increases to the caps being rolled out:
- Care flights from the UK and India into Darwin have started now, this will take some of the pressure off the caps coming from the US into Australia – great news.
- They have also increased the caps (only a small increase of 300 or so) so we hope that this increase continues.
- Current increases have taken place in Sydney already, who’s cap has increased by 500 per week. We have then seen Delta increase it’s flights LAX – SYD to 6 days a week. Great news.
- Brisbane has increased its cap by 500 per week, am starting to see Air NZ flying into Brisbane again (11 hr transit in AKL though so watch out), this is promising..
- Perth caps have increased by 500 a week! I can finally see some options for flights into Perth in FEB/MAR – this is significant as I haven’t seen flights into PER for months now!
Latest from individual airlines
Air New Zealand (NZ)
LAX-AKL-SYD on Sundays, LAX-AKL-BNE (TUE/SAT) connections.
Air Canada (AC)
Not recommended to book ATM.
American Airlines (AA)
4 days a week LAX – SYD (TUE/WED/FRI/SUN)
United (UA)
7 days a week from SFO, 3 days a week from LAX (TUE/THU/SUN)
Delta (DL)
Flying 7 days a week (LAX-SYD)
Singapore Airlines (SQ) & Cathay Pacific (CX)
NYC-SIN-PER (TUE/WED/FRI/SUN)
Virgin Australia (VA)
QANTAS (QF)
Emirates (EK), Etihad (EY) and Qatar (QR)
Questions & Bookings
Do you have any questions? Do you need travel advice? Contact Josh by his email, [email protected]
