Ok so perhaps I shouldn’t get frustrated by the price of airfares in Australia. Maybe I should be used to it. After all it has always been this way in Australia.

What am I talking about you ask?

Domestic airfares. Or at least the price of them. I jumped online the other day checking out the various websites of different airlines. Yes I know there are search engines that will supposedly pull up the best airfare but quite frankly I’ve found them to be a joke. I haven’t really found that they do pull up the best fare and for the most part they seem to have a bias to a particular airline. So while I do test them out every now and then to see if they have gotten any better I tend to find that going direct to the airlines own website is cheaper. If a somewhat more lengthy process.

Anyway I looked up airfares Perth Bangkok return for the Thailand trip.  I regularly keep a check on them since you never know when a good special will come out.  Great news was that Tiger Airways has started up here in Australia and there was a fare for about $560 odd.  That is about half the price it has been.  Now there are other budget carriers but I have been finding it hard to get the return leg.  Getting the cheap flight out of Australia was one thing.  Getting the return flight was another.

So having found that fare with both the outbound leg and the return possible I hunted for a domestic airfare.  I live in Canberra which for those of you who do not know is the opposite side of the country.  Still I’ve kind of decided to fly in and out of Perth because my travel buddy lives in WA and so does my family so I can see my family and Cass and I can fly out on the same plane which will make things easier.

Can you believe the return flight Canberra - Perth - Canberra came in costing about $10 more than the international airfare?  That was priced with both Qantas and Virgin Blue the so called competitor that is keeping prices down! 

The only slight glimmer on the horizon is the rumour that Tiger Airways is starting up on the Domestic Routes in Australia at a time yet to be announced.  Somehow I think it will be too late for me to benefit from at least on this trip but it will be interesting to see if they can shake up the two big airlines here and stay in the market.

So no real news on the front of Airfares yet.  Am still checking for airfares but haven’t booked any yet.  I know, I know… knowing my luck that probably means I’ll end up shelling out top dollar for the airfare.  That is not unusual for me either.  Others always have these wonderful stories of the great airfare deals they managed to get.  I just get ones like this.  Great deal but by the time one adds the domestic leg in the price gets bumped up to what I’d pay with Qantas.  Ah well I’ll keep looking and hoping anyway.