SNeha-J-AeroSoft: http://australian-aviation-news.blogspot.com

1. Frequent flyer fast-track: Virgin Velocity Platinum in 60 seconds
Virgin Australia's push to woo Qantas frequent flyers already includes a valuable status match offer which provides free silver, gold or platinum membership in Virgin's Velocity Rewards programme if you hold the equivalent level with Qantas or any other airline.
You can apply for the status match online at Virgin's website or do it over the counter at the Virgin lounge in any Australian airport.
But there's a third option: a 'pop-up' store in Sydney's Westfield shopping mall, where your on-the-spot Velocity upgrade can be done in less than 60 seconds.

I know this for a fact because I tried it yesterday... I walked up as a base-level Velocity Red and less than a minute later strolled away as a top-tier Velocity Platinum, just by flashing my current Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum Card.
You don't have to be a Platinum-wielding jetsetter, of course. Qantas Frequent Flyer Silver becomes Velocity Silver, and Qantas Frequent Flyer Gold becomes Velocity Gold – ditto for the equivalent levels in other frequent flyer programs such as BA's Executive Club, Cathay Pacific's Marco Polo Club, United's MileagePlus, Emirates' Skywards and Malaysia Airlines' Enrich.
Inside of one minute you'll have a new temporary Velocity card and matching bag tag, putting all the perks of the new Velocity program (which includes family pooling of points and free elite-level membership of hotel and car hire rewards programs) at your fingertips. It just doesn't get any quicker or any easier than that!

2. Cheap flights have disappeared

Fares for flights to and from Canberra have surged in recent months.
Whether you’re travelling locally or internationally for the rest of this year – and into 2012 – fares are heading north. For cheap fares on the domestic front, I can see a return to the Ansett-Qantas duopoly with any route that doesn’t have “consumer insurance” from a Tiger Airways service likely to be asking considerably more in best fares.

''There is less competition,” airline analyst Peter Harbison, of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), told Saturday’s Canberra Times, which is rueing the national capital’s loss of Tiger Airways flights to Melbourne and the arrival of the Ansett-ised Virgin Australia with a raft of new turboprop services on the Sydney route. “Virgin is a different airline.

“They have ceased to be a low-cost carrier and are a full (service) carrier.”

The days of the $100 return flight from Canberra to Sydney are over. In less than a year there has been an almost 50 per cent increase in the cost of the cheapest return flight between Canberra and Sydney.

The increase was a result of less competition at Canberra Airport, Qantas and Virgin Australia fighting for a share of the business travel market.
In October last year, people could purchase a return flight between the two cities for $229.50, but by September this year, this had increased to $341.31. He expects this to creep up to $350 by the end of the month.

In fact, booking a month out, $99 one-way fares are available on the Sydney-Canberra route and $105-$130 on Canberra-Melbourne, but nothing like Tiger's $49 specials and better.

Tiger Airways has not resumed flights to Canberra despite returning to other cities. It has removed Canberra from the drop-down booking menu on its website.

Meanwhile, Qantas last month secured approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for its new joint venture deal with American Airlines using an argument that it would lead to fare reductions on 64 per cent of US destinations for travellers from Australia.

I'm wondering if you have noticed Qantas fares to the US going down when best fares in the past year have risen by around 60 per cent. Using Sydney-Los Angeles as the benchmark, the best you can do as we head into the pre-Christmas low season is around $730 one-way on all airlines, whether you travel non-stop or via China on one of the cheaper Chinese carriers.