Xiomara

We are planning to visit Melbourne, Sydney, & Carins sometime either in late Feb. or early March of 2002. I have searched several website (Quantas Vacation being the best so far) and I am wondering if there is a more independent, less expensive way to book this trip ie: internal flights, hotels, car rentals. Any information to best absorb my vist in Australia would be appreciated. <BR>Thank You

Dick

Although, it's convenient to book a package...I found it to be much cheaper to plan our trip to Austraila and New Zealand on my own. <BR> <BR>As an added bonus, I din't have to pay anything in advance for accomodations....just had to guarantee with a credit card.

Anthony

Xiomara: <BR>Just got back from the Quantas Package of the 3 cities you mentioned. Although you can,of course, book everythingseparately, there is almost no way you can get the same vacation cheaper. If you price airfare alone, it would be just about the price of Quatas's package which includes hotel! Besides, the Quantas vacation is only airfare and hotel; how much more independent do you want? We scheduled our own tours, transportation and meals. We loved the vacation , and enjoyed each of the 3 cities. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Kay

Xiomara, <BR>You would probably find the Qantas package cheaper than booking the same thing yourself (e.g. similar flights and same grade hotels) but you will find you can book cheaper accommodation yourself than the packages offer and sometimes the airlines have cheap internet deals. <BR>Try www.jasons.com.au for accommodation and www.virginblue.com.au for flights (Virgin fly to Townsville but not Cairns). You may be able to get a cheaper deal. <BR>Kay

Dee

For Queensland accomodation try liamsholiday.com.au. There are some reasonably priced places on there.

Linda

Also beginning plans to go to Australia in February 2002. We were also looking at the Quantas package deal. We will be looking around to see what is out there. We have heard that it rains a lot in February and maybe might not be a good time to go. Do you know if that is true?

Jen

We're also planning a trip to Australia and have the Qantas brochure for independent vacations. When the people on this forum say the "package" are they talking about the different combinations of tours and accomodations for each seperate city? We are thinking about booking one of those but are afraid it wouldn't be very flexible.

john

Jen <BR>We have booked a Qantas independent tour for this coming Dec. We did it through World Wide Travel, no problem so far. I researched what we wanted to do and then sat down with the agent a planed it out. So far so good.

Rhonda

Linda, it only rains a lot in February in tropical areas. February is normally hot in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra. In Sydney it's more humid. Some years there's a lot of rain, but others, it's fine.

Anthony

Jen:<BR><BR>The Quantas 'package' is the 'air &amp; hotel'packages that they offer, along with United. Both airlines offer heavely discounted air and hotel packages from NY &amp; LA to Sydney,Cairns &amp; Melbourne for around $1400 to $1700/person. We booked in Dec., and paid $1700,which included taxes, departing from LA, taking an upgrade to a better class of hotels. It was $300 more from NY, but we used Frequent flyer miles for the NY-LA segment. The hotels all were in the $95-$120/nt US$ range, so if you use an average of $100US/nt, that would make the airfare portion $1100 for LA-Sydney-Cairns-Melbourne-LA.