Hi,<BR><BR>My American fiance and I are getting married in Sydney in Spring (September/October) next year. We want to have the wedding at a time when airfares are as low as possible for our American guests. Most people will be coming from San Francisco or the Southwest. Does anyone have tips, recommendations for airlines, travel times, days to avoid or include, etc? I see there's a Qantas special for September and Nov--is October an expensive month to travel to Australia? Thanks!

I watched for several months last year on travelocity , etc and found there was a significant drop in fares for travel in mid- may to July. The drop appeeared in late march, so I was getting kind of nervous, but it went from 1100 to about 8oo so was worth the wait for 4 of us!<BR>

Hi, Emily!<BR>I can't help with the airfares -- it seems that nowadays you have just got to keep watching for specials and then jump in as soon as the price meets your target, like buying stock -- but on the subject of travelling in Australia in October: the only thing to watch out for here are the school spring vacations. They vary slightly from state to state (never more than about a week or two, however), and in NSW this year they start on September 27 and run until mid-October (the dates will be similar next year, but I can't tell you them exactly). This will make a difference to hotel prices, and also to the availability of accommodation in the popular areas. If you can "hold off" until the second half of October (great weather, then, too!) you will find that all the kids will be back in school and the hotels will take the covers off their "discount" signs again. Good luck!

If there are several of you going to Australia you can get group pricing. Needs to be done through travel agents.Usually it is cheapest to fly midweek for the best airfares. Often on the weekends there are surcharges. You can also get group rates on hotels. You might want to think about having some group experiences once they are in Sydney-harbor cruise, bridge climb, outing to Blue Mountains or Bondi Beach.<BR>Contact me if I can help. What a beautiful place to get married. Just got back from Sydney.

Emily - The above poster is a travel agent. I am not. I am planning a trip to Australia in Nov. I'll be there 12 nights and booked through a "tour" group, but ONLY for my air and hotel. I used Goway, but I'm sure that others can find you the same deal. So far, I have not been able to find a better price than I got from the tour group. My airfare on qantas at the time I am going is still showing at about roundtrip US$1,500 from LAX to Sydney. This did not incl my flights from Sydney to Cairns. I got my LAX-Sydney-Cairns-Sydney-LAX airfare and 12 nights of hotels, plus insurance, tax for around $2,000. I probably could have kept waiting for a great airfare deal, but with my trip being only 8 weeks out, I did not feel comfortable waiting until the last minute. <BR><BR>I am not planning any events until I get to Sydney since so many are outdoors and I don't want to climb the bridge on a rainy day! I did book the Sydney Opera since there do not appear to be many Sat night performances in the concert hall...

Hi Emily,<BR><BR>Congratulation on getting married. I live in the US and am travelling to Australia to get married in Sydney in October (next month!). I started researching fares in January and have not seen them come down too much. It turns out Sydney is hosting the Gay Olympics and Melbourne has a horse race (the Melbourne Cup) at the end of October/beginning of November this year so prices are higher during those times. Everywhere I looked had higher prices for October and we had tp book early to get the accommodations we wanted. I am not sure if these events are every year, but I would recommend checking out the schedule of events and book really early if there are events. <BR><BR>Also, I did not find travel agents to be very helpful since they will not book internet fares that are non-commissionable. I ended up booking everything myself and saved over $1,000 versus what the travel agents could get for me.<BR><BR>Good luck!<BR>Patrice

Just for your information - The Melbourne Cup Carnival is held late October early November annually in Melbourne.<BR>The Gay Games are in Sydney, but only this year.<BR>However, next year Sydney will be hosting the Rugby (football) World Cup starting October 10 and running until November 22 - there will be considerable strain on hotels for that period - as they are expecting large overseas support.

The World Rugby Cup most certainly will be big and will probably effect Sydney and I think also Brisbane, a little, where something is going to be played. However if you book ahead you should be OK and in any event you can book around it anyway for Sydney and not everyone will be wanting to stay in the same type of accommodation as your guests I would expect. It won't effect the rest of Australia same as the Gay whatsit doesn't & neither does the Melbourne Cup which is held on the second Tuesday of November so you are not really going to be in the peak times. There are school holidays in September but they are different for each State and again it does not really effect International airlines. <BR>Check out www.webjet.com.au for prices available now and for October/Nov and see what you might be able to expect a year from now - all things being equal.

Liz,<BR>I think the problem people will have with hotels during the World Cup is that most of the tickets are sold overseas as package deals which include accomodation and therefore many of the chain hotels will have blocked out large numbers of rooms in anticipation.

You are probably right Prue but I would imagine that there will be some hotels and B&Bs just out of Sydney and at the beach areas that would not be taken up. I think at last look there was 4,000 excess beds in Sydney after Olympics, mind you that is not much when you have a big event on. I wonder if Emily could do a quick count around here friends and family and estimate if she would be better in booking some of the suite/apartment hotels around Sydney. Better still get some definite dates with which to work. She didn't say where in Sydney she was getting married which could make a difference. <BR>Its just dreadful trying to organize something like this when there is a big event on because you just have no idea what effect that is going to have on the accommodation situation.