$130 for an 8-Hour Flight! What’s the Catch
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Date: 2025-03-30
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Comments and reviews: 20
OldManBadly
Jetstar is special in ways you never want an airline to be special. I think that not including a standard level of carry on luggage without a fee is dishonest in many ways. I doubt that very few people flew on that flight without paying something over their ticket price just to get on. That by itself to me is quite low level scummy. Sort of like hotels with resort fees that are often higher than the room rate. Misleading and dishonest.
If you can tolerate the space you get for 8 hours, there is nothing really wrong with it I guess. Getting an exit row means you missed the joy of having to break your legs in two places to make them fit the limited leg room on a flight like that. The narrow seats (17 inch, eek) and dense 3-3-3 configuration and 314 economy seats in their standard layout leave you little if anything. You get 17x30 inches as total personal space. How awesome. Charging extra for the on board entertainment system seems to be another great way to nickel and dime passengers.
Noel, one way you can check the quality of an airline is their plane turn around process. If you sit up at the gate you can see when the plane arrives, and you can see if they in fact have cleaning crews go on board, if they catering (many low cost airline stock food for both directions, and how they are treating luggage and such airside. Companies that do very fast turn around times often skip most of the stuff at out stations. This is particularly common on airlines that do not offer pillows, blankets, or standard meal services. So you can learn a lot about what you are getting on board by watching what they do before you get on board.
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Jetstar is special in ways you never want an airline to be special. I think that not including a standard level of carry on luggage without a fee is dishonest in many ways. I doubt that very few people flew on that flight without paying something over their ticket price just to get on. That by itself to me is quite low level scummy. Sort of like hotels with resort fees that are often higher than the room rate. Misleading and dishonest.
If you can tolerate the space you get for 8 hours, there is nothing really wrong with it I guess. Getting an exit row means you missed the joy of having to break your legs in two places to make them fit the limited leg room on a flight like that. The narrow seats (17 inch, eek) and dense 3-3-3 configuration and 314 economy seats in their standard layout leave you little if anything. You get 17x30 inches as total personal space. How awesome. Charging extra for the on board entertainment system seems to be another great way to nickel and dime passengers.
Noel, one way you can check the quality of an airline is their plane turn around process. If you sit up at the gate you can see when the plane arrives, and you can see if they in fact have cleaning crews go on board, if they catering (many low cost airline stock food for both directions, and how they are treating luggage and such airside. Companies that do very fast turn around times often skip most of the stuff at out stations. This is particularly common on airlines that do not offer pillows, blankets, or standard meal services. So you can learn a lot about what you are getting on board by watching what they do before you get on board.
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shanevella4982
Flew Jetstar or Jokestar as some call it from Sydney to Hervey Bay last week. Everything was fine. The plane was clean and leg room ok. I'm 183cm. Left on time and arrived early. My wife and I paid $150 each one way which included seat selection, 20kg checked bag and 14kg hand luggage. Our hand luggage was weighed in the gate area. They came round with portable scales and then tagged your bag as checked. If you don't have a tag on your hand luggage, you could not board. If your hand luggage is over what you paid for (7kg or 14kg) it was a flat $80 fee to have it put in with checked baggage. What I did like with Jetstar was just before you reach the self check in/bag tag machines, they had scales so you could weigh your luggage. The other good thing was, because my wife and I were on the same booking, they consolidated our weight allowance. They said you have a combined weight of 40kg for the checked bags and 28 kg's for both hand luggage.
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Flew Jetstar or Jokestar as some call it from Sydney to Hervey Bay last week. Everything was fine. The plane was clean and leg room ok. I'm 183cm. Left on time and arrived early. My wife and I paid $150 each one way which included seat selection, 20kg checked bag and 14kg hand luggage. Our hand luggage was weighed in the gate area. They came round with portable scales and then tagged your bag as checked. If you don't have a tag on your hand luggage, you could not board. If your hand luggage is over what you paid for (7kg or 14kg) it was a flat $80 fee to have it put in with checked baggage. What I did like with Jetstar was just before you reach the self check in/bag tag machines, they had scales so you could weigh your luggage. The other good thing was, because my wife and I were on the same booking, they consolidated our weight allowance. They said you have a combined weight of 40kg for the checked bags and 28 kg's for both hand luggage.
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jonasm3812
Jetstar was an absolute nightmare for my first experience. I flew LAX- AKL on my carrier (American, and then Jetstar to Queenstown. I usually carry on my luggage but since I had a 4. 5 hour layover in AKL, thought it easier to check it (big mistake and it was never tagged. Not only was the flight delayed (with no update from the staff) by a system failure which only impacted Jetstar. Someone finally came out after 3 hours and said flight was cancelled. So as I went to leave a rep at security said, that flight is boarding now. Run back to the gate and find that only half the earlier passengers had left. Criminal. So, arrive in Queenstown (beautiful) and my bag is nowhere to be seen. I fill out the missing bag form thinking it will show in a day. Nope, didn't get my bag until 5 days later. Now, I'm getting non-stop calls from Jetstar asking for my feedback, which it only took me one call to provide. Fail.
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Jetstar was an absolute nightmare for my first experience. I flew LAX- AKL on my carrier (American, and then Jetstar to Queenstown. I usually carry on my luggage but since I had a 4. 5 hour layover in AKL, thought it easier to check it (big mistake and it was never tagged. Not only was the flight delayed (with no update from the staff) by a system failure which only impacted Jetstar. Someone finally came out after 3 hours and said flight was cancelled. So as I went to leave a rep at security said, that flight is boarding now. Run back to the gate and find that only half the earlier passengers had left. Criminal. So, arrive in Queenstown (beautiful) and my bag is nowhere to be seen. I fill out the missing bag form thinking it will show in a day. Nope, didn't get my bag until 5 days later. Now, I'm getting non-stop calls from Jetstar asking for my feedback, which it only took me one call to provide. Fail.
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HR-wd6cw
$15 for what woulid probably cost even $6 at a gas station in the uS. That's the thing with budget airlines. When you add in all the extras you'd get with another airline (included with the fare) you're not saving that much money. Then again, if you ate at the airport and bought snacks on board, then it might actually be cheaper although flying that route for only about $130 USD is not bad, as I could easily see other airlines charging $500 so this seems almost like the Spirit of the Asian market. I guess for that trip though, I'd suffer the 8 hours in economy as 3 cents per mile is CHEAP. You can't even fly in the US on the cheap airlines for that in most cases (except maybe some of the relally cheap red-eye flights that leave very late and don't arrive until early morning.
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$15 for what woulid probably cost even $6 at a gas station in the uS. That's the thing with budget airlines. When you add in all the extras you'd get with another airline (included with the fare) you're not saving that much money. Then again, if you ate at the airport and bought snacks on board, then it might actually be cheaper although flying that route for only about $130 USD is not bad, as I could easily see other airlines charging $500 so this seems almost like the Spirit of the Asian market. I guess for that trip though, I'd suffer the 8 hours in economy as 3 cents per mile is CHEAP. You can't even fly in the US on the cheap airlines for that in most cases (except maybe some of the relally cheap red-eye flights that leave very late and don't arrive until early morning.
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frankbarr1101
I flew Jetstar a couple of times - Sydney to Auckland and Bali to Singapore. I found them fine. Yes I was worried a bit about carry on baggage as I suspected I was slightly over - but wasn't checked. The thing about budget airlines - be it Jetstar or Ryanair, is that they make travel possible where it was not in the past to all but the wealthy. And if you are getting a flight for about 3cents a mile then why would you expect free food. Bring a block of cheese, an apple or a bar of chocolate and just buy some coffee onboard or stock up in the Lounge before travelling!
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I flew Jetstar a couple of times - Sydney to Auckland and Bali to Singapore. I found them fine. Yes I was worried a bit about carry on baggage as I suspected I was slightly over - but wasn't checked. The thing about budget airlines - be it Jetstar or Ryanair, is that they make travel possible where it was not in the past to all but the wealthy. And if you are getting a flight for about 3cents a mile then why would you expect free food. Bring a block of cheese, an apple or a bar of chocolate and just buy some coffee onboard or stock up in the Lounge before travelling!
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raymondcaylor6292
Jet Star / Death Star whatever. That's an incredible value that opens up travel to more budgets even if you'll probably have to do laundry during your vacation. In my older age usually 4 hours is my capacity for economy seat flight's but I think I'd roll the dice on this one. 4K miles 0. 03 USD is unbelievable. What's more unbelievable is that money for value only gets a 4. 5 out of 5. 0 rating from Noel. Anything that leaves close to on time and gets there close to on time and is 3 pennies a mile is a 5 out of 5 value for money to me.
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Jet Star / Death Star whatever. That's an incredible value that opens up travel to more budgets even if you'll probably have to do laundry during your vacation. In my older age usually 4 hours is my capacity for economy seat flight's but I think I'd roll the dice on this one. 4K miles 0. 03 USD is unbelievable. What's more unbelievable is that money for value only gets a 4. 5 out of 5. 0 rating from Noel. Anything that leaves close to on time and gets there close to on time and is 3 pennies a mile is a 5 out of 5 value for money to me.
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cherienspike6414
Unpopular opinion, but I fly Jetstar regularly domestically and I've flown international once and I really can't fault the experience for the price. I've had worse delays and service on Qantas. Most Jetstar flights I've been on have landed early and once, flying out of Brisbane in bad weather, it was the only carrier that wasn't delayed or cancelled. It's no frills, but they always manage to meet or exceed my expectations (perhaps their reputation lowers my expectations, but I'm a happy Jetstar customer.
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Unpopular opinion, but I fly Jetstar regularly domestically and I've flown international once and I really can't fault the experience for the price. I've had worse delays and service on Qantas. Most Jetstar flights I've been on have landed early and once, flying out of Brisbane in bad weather, it was the only carrier that wasn't delayed or cancelled. It's no frills, but they always manage to meet or exceed my expectations (perhaps their reputation lowers my expectations, but I'm a happy Jetstar customer.
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olischwarz2912
Just as Noel said, it just ISN'T that bad. A lot of people loveeeee to complain about things that happen to every airline on the daily. There is a lot of people in these comments that clearly have no clue how complex the airline business is. And for all the people mad about low cost carries doing everything to get money out of you, think about it, its a BUSINESS at the end of the day. It is trying to turn over a profit plus it is a LCC, what do you expect
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Just as Noel said, it just ISN'T that bad. A lot of people loveeeee to complain about things that happen to every airline on the daily. There is a lot of people in these comments that clearly have no clue how complex the airline business is. And for all the people mad about low cost carries doing everything to get money out of you, think about it, its a BUSINESS at the end of the day. It is trying to turn over a profit plus it is a LCC, what do you expect
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aamslfc
Never thought I'd see the day when you, of all people, willingly flew an LCC like Jetstar.
Tbh, that's an astonishingly cheap price even by Crapstar's standards. but still, us Aussies have learned the hard way not to get sucked in by their pricing.
You're a brave man to endure the Jetstar Screamliner for 8 hours on an overnight in barely-economy.
Braver than me; even their exorbitantly-priced imitation J product is best avoided.
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Never thought I'd see the day when you, of all people, willingly flew an LCC like Jetstar.
Tbh, that's an astonishingly cheap price even by Crapstar's standards. but still, us Aussies have learned the hard way not to get sucked in by their pricing.
You're a brave man to endure the Jetstar Screamliner for 8 hours on an overnight in barely-economy.
Braver than me; even their exorbitantly-priced imitation J product is best avoided.
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gpierre90
Hi Noel, Well first the elephant in the room, I am not Australian, however I have been to Australia about 11 years ago now, long time and we did, by we, me and my parents boarded a 1hr, Jetstar flight from MEL-SYD, it was decent I would say, our aircraft was an A330-200, not bad really. It's interesting that the IFE interface had not changed since 2014, Its still the same. I love Australia and I'm hoping to visit there again soon.
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Hi Noel, Well first the elephant in the room, I am not Australian, however I have been to Australia about 11 years ago now, long time and we did, by we, me and my parents boarded a 1hr, Jetstar flight from MEL-SYD, it was decent I would say, our aircraft was an A330-200, not bad really. It's interesting that the IFE interface had not changed since 2014, Its still the same. I love Australia and I'm hoping to visit there again soon.
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timlux
European here, and I flew twice with them, my first flight was with their Asian Branch from Naha to Singapore, and the other flight was from Sydney to Honolulu, and had no issues with them, sure u had to pay for everything, but price was ok, cheaper than the extras you have to pay with Ryanair for example. Seat was ok, prepaid food was ok, booze was maybe a bit to expensive #firstworldproblems haha I would definitely book them again.
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European here, and I flew twice with them, my first flight was with their Asian Branch from Naha to Singapore, and the other flight was from Sydney to Honolulu, and had no issues with them, sure u had to pay for everything, but price was ok, cheaper than the extras you have to pay with Ryanair for example. Seat was ok, prepaid food was ok, booze was maybe a bit to expensive #firstworldproblems haha I would definitely book them again.
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robertkenney4336
I have another name for them that Wont put here. But seriously I have flown on them twice. They were night flights and I slept he entire time. So it would be unfair to be harsh to them.
But with the Australians next to you complaining- Australians want the best service and they ARE NOT prepared to pay for it. And Australians love to complain. Its a national pastime.
As always I love your adventures
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I have another name for them that Wont put here. But seriously I have flown on them twice. They were night flights and I slept he entire time. So it would be unfair to be harsh to them.
But with the Australians next to you complaining- Australians want the best service and they ARE NOT prepared to pay for it. And Australians love to complain. Its a national pastime.
As always I love your adventures
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heatherp8584
Thanks for another great video. You make everything interesting.
How much extra did it cost for the carry-on
I hope you have/had a great time in Melbourne.
Just a small request: please try to fix the volume on your sound when talking on the flight. I'm constantly adjusting my laptop from 100% (still having trouble hearing you, to 50% when the sound quality is good.
Take care, and stay safe.
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Thanks for another great video. You make everything interesting.
How much extra did it cost for the carry-on
I hope you have/had a great time in Melbourne.
Just a small request: please try to fix the volume on your sound when talking on the flight. I'm constantly adjusting my laptop from 100% (still having trouble hearing you, to 50% when the sound quality is good.
Take care, and stay safe.
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pinni74
Flown deathstar a few times. Cheap and cheerful. It’s a budget airline and I found was a tad better than say Ryan air for example but not my much. You get what you pay for I guess. We Aussies joke about it but it’s the bogans that pay for a cheap flight and expect it to be like emirates business class. Domestic flights are ok but you are bloody brave to go international on them.
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Flown deathstar a few times. Cheap and cheerful. It’s a budget airline and I found was a tad better than say Ryan air for example but not my much. You get what you pay for I guess. We Aussies joke about it but it’s the bogans that pay for a cheap flight and expect it to be like emirates business class. Domestic flights are ok but you are bloody brave to go international on them.
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isaacmacdonald6530
As soon as I saw 911, I immediately thought of the United States.
Fun fact: 911 is the Emergency Number in the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, among others that do use it.
But all the same. You got a nice view of Melbourne Airport with DHL, and Australian Federal Police. Hope you had not been in any trouble. Stay safe, Noel.
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As soon as I saw 911, I immediately thought of the United States.
Fun fact: 911 is the Emergency Number in the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, among others that do use it.
But all the same. You got a nice view of Melbourne Airport with DHL, and Australian Federal Police. Hope you had not been in any trouble. Stay safe, Noel.
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bradfoust50
I paid $300 round trip from Hawaii to Australia. That was about a $1000 cheaper than any other option. We only packed what Jetstar allowed you to bring without charging extra, and had enough for the 6 days. They even gave my friend and I some Butter chicken on the flight. The food was about like a microwave dinner. But we appreciated the free food.
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I paid $300 round trip from Hawaii to Australia. That was about a $1000 cheaper than any other option. We only packed what Jetstar allowed you to bring without charging extra, and had enough for the 6 days. They even gave my friend and I some Butter chicken on the flight. The food was about like a microwave dinner. But we appreciated the free food.
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jaybobo
Deathstar are pretty average domestically but their international flights are great as long as you're cognizant of what you've paid for the trip.
much like your travelling companions, a lot of aussies get on the flight 6 months after they booked it and forget they only paid $130 to go 1/4 of the way around the planet!
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Deathstar are pretty average domestically but their international flights are great as long as you're cognizant of what you've paid for the trip.
much like your travelling companions, a lot of aussies get on the flight 6 months after they booked it and forget they only paid $130 to go 1/4 of the way around the planet!
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mazza685
Flew Jetstar Perth to Melbourne last month (on the red eye. No WiFi (either not working or switched off in them thinking everyone would sleep) You had to pay for certain food and drinks (same with Virgin but at least their WiFi worked) Not too bad really, seats were fine but I learnt I can't really sleep sitting up.
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Flew Jetstar Perth to Melbourne last month (on the red eye. No WiFi (either not working or switched off in them thinking everyone would sleep) You had to pay for certain food and drinks (same with Virgin but at least their WiFi worked) Not too bad really, seats were fine but I learnt I can't really sleep sitting up.
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vrfan
We don't call it Deathstar we call it Sstar and I had the displeasure of flying with them from Osaka to Cairns (and onto Melbourne) in 2019 as it was the only flight I could get following a typhoon. Surly crew, narrow seats and my last minute booking included a 'meal' but it was a soggy sandwich so didn't bother.
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We don't call it Deathstar we call it Sstar and I had the displeasure of flying with them from Osaka to Cairns (and onto Melbourne) in 2019 as it was the only flight I could get following a typhoon. Surly crew, narrow seats and my last minute booking included a 'meal' but it was a soggy sandwich so didn't bother.
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MamaCarola1
Wow, u didn't have to pay to pee! Considering they upcharge for everything else, I'm surprised. What a lost revenue for them tho if there were lines for every bathroom! Just swipe your cc here sir & for the low, low price of $10 you can use the bathroom. I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough
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Wow, u didn't have to pay to pee! Considering they upcharge for everything else, I'm surprised. What a lost revenue for them tho if there were lines for every bathroom! Just swipe your cc here sir & for the low, low price of $10 you can use the bathroom. I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough
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