Flying options for a US citizen

My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Australia in March 2018. We would like to include a cruise to New Zealand out of Sydney. The rest of the time we will be in Perth. I would like to fly Chicago to Sydney (round trip), then book a separate Sydney-Perth (round trip). What airlines should I be looking at? Visa requirements? Any other helpful tips??

My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Australia in March 2018. We would like to include a cruise to New Zealand out of Sydney. The rest of the time we will be in Perth. I would like to fly Chicago to Sydney (round trip), then book a separate Sydney-Perth (round trip). What airlines should I be looking at? Visa requirements? Any other helpful tips??

For flight information start here: http://matrix.itasoftware.com You cannot book on this site, but it will show you what routing and airlines are available as well as current pricing.

For booking note that for most airlines you must be within 300-330 days of your travel date to book tickets. Hence accurate pricing for March 2018 is not yet available.

I would be looking on the Cruise Air board here- many flying experts there.

In general terms your outline is fine. Essentially you can fly to SYD from SFO, LAX and DFW. Vancouver (Air Canada)is another option. United, AA, Qantas and Delta are going to get you the most direct routes. Lots of airlines will take you less direct routes.

If you fly Qantas or AA, you might be able to add your SYD-PER flights to your tickets.

As commonly discussed on this board, and the other Australia/New Zealand board, you will require an Australian e-Visa, very easy to get on line.

Personally I prefer the major airlines when traveling internationally. This means for intra-Australia we used Qantas or maybe Air NZ. Both were excellent. You can probably get a cheaper ticket on other lines but for us, we felt more comfortable using the majors.

As an aside, you're only traveling to Perth and Sydney in Australia ? Again, probably personal preference, but we didn't enjoy Perth all that much. We did the penguin tour which was very good but the rest of Perth was just "ordinary". To us, Sydney and Cairns were better and we would have loved to spent more time there.

Thank you everyone for your help! My sister and her family live in Perth, hence the reason for the stay there. Then the four of us will travel back to Sydney for the New Zealand cruise on the Radiance of the Seas. Quite the adventure!

Another option - we flew to Honolulu, spent the night, then took the 9 hr Hawaiian Air flight to Sydney. You leave at 1pm, Hawaiian time & arrive 9pm Sydney time (a different day). The flights from SFO & LAX are over 14 hours plus they leave at night thinking you can sleep during the flight. For those of us that don't sleep well on planes, this works.

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We are flying out of LAX to the Cook Islands where we will stay for 10 days and then direct to Sydney from Cook Islands. We have already been to Hawaii and thought Cook Islands would be good stop to break up the long flight from North America. The LAX to Cook Islands flight is weekly on Saturday night, arriving on Sunday in Rarotonga. We decided to start our South Pacific adventure with a beach vacation before continuing on our 6-week trip to New Zealand and Australia.

My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Australia in March 2018. We would like to include a cruise to New Zealand out of Sydney. The rest of the time we will be in Perth. I would like to fly Chicago to Sydney (round trip), then book a separate Sydney-Perth (round trip). What airlines should I be looking at? Visa requirements? Any other helpful tips??

Use "ita matrix" on the web to search flights (no tix sold) - much more comprehensive than orbitz, kayak, etc. IMO, your best bet for flexibility will be United and it's Star Alliance partners.

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My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Australia in March 2018. We would like to include a cruise to New Zealand out of Sydney. The rest of the time we will be in Perth. I would like to fly Chicago to Sydney (round trip), then book a separate Sydney-Perth (round trip). What airlines should I be looking at?

If so, then you may well find that the better option is to fly Chicago-Hong Kong-Perth, and then Sydney-Hong Kong-Chicago. That way, you only have to buy a one-way ticket Perth-Sydney; and the long-haul parts of the trip are one-stop in both directions. It is no further to get from Chicago to Perth via Hong Kong than via Sydney, although the Sydney-Chicago journey is a bit longer if routed through Hong Kong; the silver lining is that you will find Hong Kong a more congenial transit point than any airport in the US in that direction. (You could even try to schedule a stopover there in one or both directions.)

You may be able to get the Perth-Sydney sector added in to that ticket, although I wouldn't count on it. Play with ITA as others have suggested.

If you buy a separate cash ticket for Perth-Sydney, make sure you take your benchmark pricing from the airlines' own websites. Tickets for Australian domestic flights sold by foreign travel agents (outside Aus/NZ/SWP) are often more expensive because the lowest fares can only be sold in that area. Buying directly from the airline (Qantas or Virgin Australia, or their low-fare offshoots Jetstar and Tigerair respectively) will get you access to those lowest fares.

If you have frequent flyer miles that can be used on Qantas or Virgin, it may be good value to use those for an award ticket rather than buying a cash ticket from scratch. Don't forget to look at the prices for business class; some of the products that these airlines offer on Perth-Sydney are really good - but you have to do your research to work out which aircraft types you need for those.

As a US citizen, the electronic visa you require is usually described as an eTA. Don't confuse it with other Australian electronic visas for nationals of some other countries.

This means for intra-Australia we used Qantas or maybe Air NZ.

My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Australia in March 2018. We would like to include a cruise to New Zealand out of Sydney. The rest of the time we will be in Perth. I would like to fly Chicago to Sydney (round trip), then book a separate Sydney-Perth (round trip). What airlines should I be looking at? Visa requirements? Any other helpful tips??

We did a Celebrity cruise from Perth to Sydney (Top End of Australia) in 2013. I booked my ticket with FF miles that did not include the Sydney to Perth flight, while my wife's ticket went all the way to Perth.

I purchased a one-way ticket for a very reasonable price from Virgin Australia. Of course, I researched pricing using Kayak. Virgin seems to beat Quantas in pricing.

I would advise you to run your Kayak search for a RT as well as a separate ticket for Sydney to Perth. There may be no difference in going all the way to Perth vs. Sydney.

Yes, we plan on heading home after the cruise. I have found all of your tips extremely helpful! Thank you so much!!

You will need a visa. Very easy to do online