Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
There was some terrific airfares available right now from Chicago to select cities in Australia (including to Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane) from just $427 round trip. Australia is a long way to travel in economy class if you’re accustomed to using points and miles to fly up front, but these prices are fantastic if you don’t mind traveling in econ (and afford you the additional flexibility of choosing dates/times without being boxed in to award availability).
The Deal
- Flights from Chicago to select cities in Australia from just $427
- Link to Skyscanner example dates from Chicago to Melbourne ($429 here – some dates from $427)
- Link to Skyscanner example dates from Chicago to Sydney ($436)
- Link to Skyscanner example dates from Chicago to Brisbane ($437)
Quick Thoughts
These prices are really terrific for round trip travel and might make it hard to shell out the quantity of miles normally required for premium-cabin travel if you’re comfortable enough in economy class.
Note that the best prices will be found via smaller travel agencies listed at Skyscanner. Prices through major OTAs found through Google Flights are a bit higher. Google Flights is showing some dates from the $480’s and others from the low $500’s (here’s a link to search Chicago to all three cities on Google Flights). Those Google Flights prices should also be bookable through credit card travel portals, meaning you should be able to book round trip economy class travel from around 33,000 points round trip if you use Ultimate Rewards points and have the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
Secret Flying has example dates for the routes mentioned above, but availability is pretty widely available from August into September.
Keep in mind that this is the end of the Australian winter. That said, our own JM Hoffman visited Melbourne and Sydney in the wintertime and took some great photos that might serve as inspiration for your vacation:
As you can see, Australia is beautiful year-round. Keep in mind that good prices between other city pairs may also be available, so it’s probably worth a few minutes of searching to see if your desired cities also have a sale.
H/T: Secret Flying
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[…] There was some terrific airfares available right now from Chicago to select cities in Australia (including to Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane) from just $427 round trip. Australia is a long way to travel in economy class if you’re accustomed to using points and miles to fly up front, but these prices are fantastic if you don’t mind traveling in econ (and afford you the additional flexibility of choosing dates/times without being boxed in to award availability). READ MORE! […]
I was there 10/11 to 11/10 Fine weather . I hit it about the best u can do but Auckland didn’t become nice till 11am. I looked on my dates WOW $461 to bad I’ll be in TLV..
Yes I flew the Cheap seats too No Big Deal.
CHEERs
[…] Credit to Secret Flying & Frequent Miler […]
Actually it’s nearing the end of the Australian SUMMER
August = winter in Australia. It’s summer in the Northern hemisphere :-).
No, Aug-Sep is winter there.