This is a good day to buy airline tickets to Australia with Qantas where I found a fare of $993 CAD = $819 USD round trip. Air New Zealand posted fares of $987 to $993 USD to Sydney and Melbourne. Delta and United are about $50 more at $1,044 for a few dates in June and July 2015. These fares are around $450 to $600 lower than flights from the USA.
Canadian Travel Hacking posted this fare yesterday for Qantas. Today the Air New Zealand fare is slightly lower than Qantas. The AAdvantage of Qantas is nonstop flights and 25% AA flight miles and 0.5 EQP for Qantas booking class O. Even better, as reader Andy points out in the comments, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan earns 100% flight miles for Qantas O booking class.
Qantas Vancouver YVR – Sydney SYD
$993.30 CAD = $819.16 USD
July 6-16, 2015
Qantas rules require minimum stay 10 days.
These fares are going quickly.
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Here are more examples of low fares. Google Flights shows these fares as US Dollar prices, but they are pricing out as Canadian Dollars prices on Qantas website.
Vancouver YVR – Melbourne MEL prices as $1,221 CAD or $1,010 USD.
Click the button to book with Qantas and the fare is priced lower at $1,019.88 CAD.
Qantas July 6-16, 2015
$1,019.88 CAD YVR-MEL = $841 USD round trip July 6-16 on Qantas.
This was a surprise to me too, but Alaska airlines pays 100% flight miles on fare class o on Qantas
I noticed when checking this fare again that you are allowed a free stopover. I was able to price a YVR-MEL ticket with stopover in Sydney in July 2015 for $1,025 CAD online using Qantas multi-city search.
Brisbane is also available for same fare YVR-SYD-BNE for a free city with stopover in Sydney.