Qantas International Business Sale Fare Availability based on Trip Length

Hi everyone,

I noticed recently that the availability of cheaper business sale fare buckets on Qantas international flights were dependent on the length of time between the outbound and inbound legs. For example, on SYD-HKG, it is only available on trips of at least 3 days, but not if it was 0 - 2 days. This was also the case no matter how far advanced you booked.

Does anyone know the rationale behind them doing this? It would make sense if it was only applicable to trips booked last minute or when the plane was fuller, but this appears to be a blanket policy on top of that. Surely they just want to fill their planes so I'm not sure as to the rationale behind excluding people from a fare bucket just because their trip length is shorter?

Just curious to see if anyone had a good explanation...thanks!

This dates back to the policy of 7-day stay periods and weekend stay restrictions in hopes that business travellers who may only stay one or two days will pay more than a leisure traveller on holiday for more than that.

I guess that's a pretty smart policy on routes where you're the only non-stop airline (perhaps not syd-hkg) where there's 3. So I assume they're testing the loyalty of their business customers vs whether they would pay ~1/3 more to go with Qantas rather than Cathay or Virgin!

Exactly. They used to be called "Apex" fares - Advance Purchase Excursion fares. You had to book them in advance and stay away for a minimum number of nights (often including at least one weekend night).

For a quick business trip at short notice account customers will pay a higher premium. If a longer business trip of a week or so then they may be known further in advance and price may matter more and so a sale fare can be attractive. I also note more sale fares to the US and fewer to Europe. Also many are more last minute presumably to fill the last few seats on planes