Qantas/Virgin Blue Earlier Flight
 

We are flying into Sydney on Air New Zealand and want to connect onto Melbourne. The least expensive flight is Jetstar but most of their flights go to Avalon.

I am wondering if either Qantas or Virgin would move you onto an earlier flight if there were seats available? We have to plan a lengthy connection in case the incoming flight is late.

With Jetstar you are going to get the cheaper fare, but the conditions that go with it. You can still check the Qantas Red Specials plus VB.
If you arrive early morning weekday or late afternon weekday your chances would be less than say around middle of the day. I doubt either would 'tell you' that you could get an earlier flights if available, but in reality both are pretty good and if you went to check in say several hours before your due flight and with a friendly smile asked 'any chance of getting on an earlier flight' if there are seats available I don't think you would have any problem at all. You could even go to the service counter before check in and ask.
I have found both to be eay and pleasant to deal with ( In my humble opinion VB have the edge ).
I can't recall the reason but a while back I checked in a couple of hours ahead of booked flight ( on a cheap fixed VB fare - non flexible ) and the check in person asked if I would like to go on a flight leaving in 40 minutes, which suited me just fine, 'no worries'. Didn't seem to bother them at all the fare status.

A lot can depend though time of day of your arrival as to chances of getting seats.

If I may ask, where are you flying in from with Air NZ, is it from USA ? Depending on the fare deal you got sometimes it's cheaper to add on a connecting domestic to that fare than buying a separate ticket.

Qantas is every 30 minutes, you have the real early flights and then from 8 am to 8.30 pm it's every 30 minutes, plus a few extra at peak times, a lot of the flights are on wide-body 767's which carry more passengers than the 737 flights, so if you wanted to really get into the fine details you could check those, but the 'every 30 minutes a flight' with Qantas does give you a pretty good chance if you can avoid the 'rush hours'. Many flights just at random ome up at AU$ 127 plus 6.50 for credit card payment.
VB only has 737's on that route.

Thanks for the info, very helpful. We are flying in from Auckland on Aeroplan. Unfortunately, they would not let me fly into Melbourne and out of Sydney which was my original plan. We then fly Sydney -Vancouver at a later date.

Hi,

I recently flew Qantas from Melbourne to Sydney - tried to get on earlier flight - no go - was told I would have to buy new ticket - needless to say I never bothered!!

Mark