"oneworld" award (132.4K/249.6K/318K/455K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

[Mr H]

This Domestic/International (and vice versa) on Qantas flights is a common issue these days. You need to search BLR-ADL and if unavailable, you're likely SOL ... although some agents (HBA usually) can add the domestic connection flight.

You can get around it by factoring in a 24 hour stop or booking the two flights on separate redemptions. If you go for the former option then you may get lucky with a schedule change allowing you to renegotiate the flight times to eliminate the stopover.

 

[FlyingFiona]

The following "script" has worked for me the best when trying to make changes: Start with "I want to check for award availibility". Then you feed the agent each route + date + flight number and ask them to add each one to your booking. Finally you ask them to remove any existing flights that you don't need anymore. IME when you say you want to change flights, some agents say that you cannot make segment changes. And asking for an availibility check first means that if you need to HUACA, the agent wouldn't have touched your existing flights yet.

I really appreciated this message, thank you. Armed with this script I rang tonight and added on segments to my existing booking to close out my OWA. (Pretty sure the agent was in South Africa.)

Segments added, ticket immediately reticketed whilst I was on the phone. Done and dusted!

Now just have a 329 day wait until departure...

 

[Gonetroppo]

Gearing up to book a third OWA booking with Mr Gonetroppo (WP by next week) in J around April 2025. I'm finding it harder to find seats than our first two OWAs (2019 and 2023), despite a lot of flexibility with the planning. The absence of CX and QR awards is a big factor (so sad!), as is the proliferation of non-Oneworld partner awards in QF crowding out the search results.
Is there a reliable way to filter out awards that are not relevant to OWAs (China Eastern, Emirates mainly), please? Seats Aero looked like it had the functionality but not for QF awards.

 

[Amanad78]

Gearing up to book a third OWA booking with Mr Gonetroppo (WP by next week) in J around April 2025. I'm finding it harder to find seats than our first two OWAs (2019 and 2023), despite a lot of flexibility with the planning. The absence of CX and QR awards is a big factor (so sad!), as is the proliferation of non-Oneworld partner awards in QF crowding out the search results.
Is there a reliable way to filter out awards that are not relevant to OWAs (China Eastern, Emirates mainly), please? Seats Aero looked like it had the functionality but not for QF awards.

With seats.aero, on the laptop I can search for OneWorld, but not on the phone app

 

[sap1l]

Seats Aero looked like it had the functionality but not for QF awards.

The way to do it is to filter out specific carriers (there's a checkbox to exclude instead of include).

Then, once the results load, you can select QFF in the programs dropdown.

The only issue with this method is that it will still show all carriers when you hover over, like this:




To get around that, you can check the "show individual flights", but I find that it's only really helpful for a narrow search.

I think you can do this on the phone as well, but I haven't used seats.aero on my phone.

 

[sap1l]

The absence of CX and QR awards is a big factor (so sad!)

Side note: I found quite a decent amount of CX availability in J when planning my OWA. There was also tons of Y and Y+ on CX as well.

What routes are you specifically looking for?

 

[elanshin]

Side note: I found quite a decent amount of CX availability in J when planning my OWA. There was also tons of Y and Y+ on CX as well.

What routes are you specifically looking for?

CX just isn't releasing at the expected ~360 days i find. They're much more once they're a bit further in, but fairly bare at the near maximum dates.

 

[sap1l]

CX just isn't releasing at the expected ~360 days i find. They're much more once they're a bit further in, but fairly bare at the near maximum dates.

Ah, yes. You’re right. I couldn’t find CX availability at 360 days before.

I don’t have an exact number, but the CX awards I added to my OWA were between 5 and 8 months ahead.

 

[Gonetroppo]

Thanks all! Having a bit more luck using the “explore” function on SeatsAero for QF (was using “search” Even with OW airlines selected it still turns up non-OW partner seats (but not as bad as in ‘search’ mode) but filtering for ‘direct’ cuts that out to some extent. Even a few almost year-out CX awards.

 

[FlyingFiona]

Thanks all! Having a bit more luck using the “explore” function on SeatsAero for QF (was using “search” Even with OW airlines selected it still turns up non-OW partner seats (but not as bad as in ‘search’ mode) but filtering for ‘direct’ cuts that out to some extent. Even a few almost year-out CX awards.

I have just booked my OWA to Europe and back for April and May 2025. I used MH, AY, JL all of whom have availability this far out. Try looking at the ports they fly to for your routing and hopefully you can also piece together an early itinerary.

 

[Gonetroppo]

I have just booked my OWA to Europe and back for April and May 2025. I used MH, AY, JL all of whom have availability this far out. Try looking at the ports they fly to for your routing and hopefully you can also piece together an early itinerary.

Thanks Fiona - yes these were shaping up as the likely ones - but Türkiye is adding some extra difficulty. Congrats on your booking!

 

[shankoz]

Hi all - what's the timeframe for JL with cancelling reward seats if not ticketed? This morning I got through to an agent in HBA, who managed to release 2xU seats for me from SYD-HND in May next year. It will then form the first part of a planned OWA award (PER-SYD-HND-DFW).

I specifically asked how long ticketing would take and whether she could push it through now but was told that because it was JL it's not as urgent as e.g. a flight with CX. Now admittedly it's only been about 8 hours since the call - but I've had a horror experience 2y ago of losing QR seats during a change of flights (and the struggle to get it all back). I'm worried it's so far in the future it'll be lowest priority to ticket - > at what point should I push the issue?

 

[shankoz]

To follow-up above in case anyone else has a similar issue - as >24h had passed without any ticketing I rang them up again. Was told there had in fact been some glitch and they apologised. Ticketing completed while still on the phone. Bit ridiculous that the customer has to force this issue time and time again. Anyway - happy days.

 

[DC3]

… Was told there had in fact been some glitch and they apologised …

Isn’t that one of the usual stories that they dish out, unfortunately? Nothing new, anyway.

 

[Warren Mason]

We have started booking our rewards trip and I am finding it much harder than I remember how it was back in 2019. I have flights from Rockhampton through Melbourne to Tokyo, Helsinki to Budapest. Then Budapest via Helsinki to Madrid. Then Madrid to London. When it comes to start the booking to get home, most of the flights seem to go via Helsinki and if I am interpreting the rules correctly, we can't go through Helsinki again. Can anyone confirm this? We were hoping to leave from Edinburgh. The trip isn't until next April/May so I have time but from memory rewards sheets dry up fairly quickly.

 

[Captain Halliday]

We have started booking our rewards trip and I am finding it much harder than I remember how it was back in 2019. I have flights from Rockhampton through Melbourne to Tokyo, Helsinki to Budapest. Then Budapest via Helsinki to Madrid. Then Madrid to London. When it comes to start the booking to get home, most of the flights seem to go via Helsinki and if I am interpreting the rules correctly, we can't go through Helsinki again. Can anyone confirm this? We were hoping to leave from Edinburgh. The trip isn't until next April/May so I have time but from memory rewards sheets dry up fairly quickly.

Maximum of two transits and one stop in any city.

If the first two in your planned routing are transits, you could make the third a stopover.

Indeed, any one of the three as a stopover would work, keeping the other two as transits.

 

[Warren Mason]

Maximum of two transits and one stop in any city.

If the first two in your planned routing are transits, you could make the third a stopover.

Indeed, any one of the three as a stopover would work, keeping the other two as transits.

Thanks for that. So if we go from Edinburgh to Helsinki and stop there for 2 nights, that get round the problem. That is great news. Thanks. Back to searching for flights.

 

[elanshin]

Thanks for that. So if we go from Edinburgh to Helsinki and stop there for 2 nights, that get round the problem. That is great news. Thanks. Back to searching for flights.

You could also leave Budapest to Madrid open jaw for now and get the long legs in as they're much more important.

 

[DC3]

…. Thanks. Back to searching for flights.

Just for future planning, Post # 1 is a pretty good starting point. The attachment to that post covers the basic rules, including stops/transits.

 

[Warren Mason]

You could also leave Budapest to Madrid open jaw for now and get the long legs in as they're much more important.

That flight should be ok as the only time we don't fly out of the landing city is London to Edinburgh so only one surface segment and from Edinburgh we are heading home as directly as possible. Stopping in Helsinki is something we talked about and this gives an excuse to do it. Trying to avoid Cathay as last time their flights dropped off every time we added a flight and that was very stressful. Not a huge trip but should be fun.