Close to 1 million QFF points - how best to use em?

[decryption]

Thanks to a NAB promotion, I have almost 1,000,000 Qantas points. I don't really fly a lot (just once every few months), so am just a Bronze level member.

I don't really know what the best way to use these points are - my partner and I would like to do a Round the World trip, and I've heard about OneWorld RTW awards being good value.

The route we'd like to take is something akin to: MEL-DXB-LHR-ORD-DFW-LAX-HKG-MEL

Is there a way to book these flights in Business or First, using as little cash as possible?

Thanks for your advice

 

[MrJetset]

Thanks to a NAB promotion, I have almost 1,000,000 Qantas points. I don't really fly a lot (just once every few months), so am just a Bronze level member.

I don't really know what the best way to use these points are - my partner and I would like to do a Round the World trip, and I've heard about OneWorld RTW awards being good value.

The route we'd like to take is something akin to: MEL-DXB-LHR-ORD-DFW-LAX-HKG-MEL

Is there a way to book these flights in Business or First, using as little cash as possible?

Thanks for your advice

1M FF points, indicating huge credit card spend, or at least 50 NAB new credit card bonuses, rarely flies, NB and concerned about using as little cash as possible?

Does not make sense!

 

[decryption]

1M FF points, indicating huge credit card spend, or at least 50 NAB new credit card bonuses, rarely flies, NB and concerned about using as little cash as possible?

Does not make sense!

I'd post a link or an image, but the forum won't let me : (

Look at my post history for the thread detailing the NAB promo.

 

[Mwenenzi]

.... - my partner and I would like to do a Round the World trip, and I've heard about OneWorld RTW awards being good value.

The route we'd like to take is something akin to: MEL-DXB-LHR-ORD-DFW-LAX-HKG-MEL

Is there a way to book these flights in Business or First, using as little cash as possible?

Look here: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ogram/oneworld-award-140k-280k-420k-8228.html

Not as many first flights left now as there was 5~10 years ago.

QF have high to very high surcharges and then there are taxes

 

[maomaocat]

1M FF points, indicating huge credit card spend, or at least 50 NAB new credit card bonuses, rarely flies, NB and concerned about using as little cash as possible?

Does not make sense!

OCAU

glad to hear you pulled it off!

 

[casanovawa]

Short and sharp, 1 million points will get you 3 and a bit 280k OW Business class awards or 2 and a bit 420k OW First awards....

The rules for OW awards are no more than 35,000 miles (use Great Circle Mapper to input your airports including any ground legs to make sure you are under 35k miles), no more than 5 stops and no more than 16 legs (including land legs)... So as long as that route is under 35,000 miles its looks pretty right although there are 6 airports there so you could only stop at 5 of them unless you wanted to do a land leg between ORD an DFW or DFW and LAX... You could probably even have a crack at putting into the classic awards multi city engine on the QF site and seeing whether you could book it, but it may well take calling up QF and wearing the assisted booking fee...

What you would now need to do is go and start looking for availablity of J/F seats on the routes/days you want... Your fees/taxes/surcharges will be in the order of $800-900 per ticket unfortunately, no real getting around that...

 

[Mwenenzi]

Great Circle Mapper here Great Circle Mapper

 

[simongr]

What you would now need to do is go and start looking for availablity of J/F seats on the routes/days you want... Your fees/taxes/surcharges will be in the order of $800-900 per ticket unfortunately, no real getting around that...

I would forecast more that $800 - my award to DXB was $1000/per person in J and that is without the UK's ludicrous APD which alone would add GBP180 per person.

 

[RWJ777]

I am in awe. Well done.

 

[MrJetset]

I'd post a link or an image, but the forum won't let me : (

Look at my post history for the thread detailing the NAB promo.

My bad. You're a smart little cookie. As others have said, 2 RTW in F, however you're best bet is going to be booking 353 days out because as a NB you will see very little availability in F, certainly less for 2 seats together. As a NB you can't request seats be opened up.

 

[RWJ777]

OK, now that you have, with the grand number of four posts, earned the adulation of everyone here, time to spill the beans!

If you started with 300,000 points and mainly as a result of the NAB offer jumped to nearly 1 million points within a two month window, how'd you make so many extremely low value transactions? I mean, have you got 5,000 Mars Bars at home? Or maybe 7,000 $1 biros from Officeworks? And did you have to give up some of each working stay swiping your card repeatedly to pay for each individual item in a separate transaction??

I'm not a little intrigued!

 

[vetrade]

Quote from decryption "I'd post a link or an image, but the forum won't let me : ( Look at my post history for the thread detailing the NAB promo."

That link only explained 100,000 points from the promotion (1000 transactions x 100 pts) but you've got 1M FF pts????
Am I missing something?

Suggest that you treat yourself to a RTW in J rather than Y with your points windfall - that will be 560,00 pts for the 2 of you - so much nicer up the pointy end. Only problem will be that J award seats are hard to come by on the direct routes through DXB or LAX. Much easier to get awards in Y on those routes.

And FWIW the taxes/surcharges on my recent OW RTW tickets (with no stopover charges for LHR) were $1347 pp - so it does seem these charges are on the rise.

 

[decryption]

Thanks for the help everyone - some very useful posts here (espically casanovawa - thanks!).


I already had 300,000 points (combo of a pretty high card spend in the first place, hoarding and some flying), then made around 7,000x transactions on the card, earning 100 points per transaction. I used a Firefox plugin called iMacro to automate paying 1c transactions to my Citylink account. I was doing approx 1,500-2,000 a day until NAB realised and contacted me to advise me they're withdrawing the promotion from my account. The points haven't been credited to my Qantas account yet (that will take 6-8 weeks), but the letter I got from NAB advising me of the withdrawal of the 100 points per transaction offer, states that they will honour the points I accrued until the date they got in touch with me, so I'm fairly certain I'll be given those points. I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch though...


Anyhoo, I still have 300,000 points, which is useful for a single OW RTW ticket anyways, so I've been meaning to look into it regardless. Just have a few questions:

So if the entire distance of the flights is under 35,000 miles, it can be booked on a single RTW ticket? Does this include surface sectors? (e.g: I drive from ORD-LAX instead of flying?)
Can I book the OW RTW award online, or just on the phone?
Is there anywhere that outlines the terms and conditions for booking an OW RTW award ticket?
Is it a special booking, or just a "multi-city" trip via the usual Qantas online booking?
Is it worth doing a few status runs to bump myself up to Silver instead of Bronze?

Thanks so much again guys

 

[serfty]

There's a dedicated thread for the QFF classic oneworld award which he's ask the information you may need.

http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/showthread.php?p=103956

 

[Simo]

OMG I am in awe.

LOL about being contacted by NAB about the points issue.

 

[robs12]

I was going to post a direct link, but I also don't have enough posts yet.. so you'll have to work it out:

link-ww.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i1cJIwE7M

All due respect Sir, nice one!

 

[Simo]

Here is the link
Life of Brian. You lucky cough. - YouTube

 

[JohnK]

I am getting closer to 1,000,000 QFF points as well.

I think at this stage 7 economy Oneworld awards would be best use....

 

[robs12]

Thank you Simo!

I hope it works out - looking at the T&C, I think you have a good chance. You did right to keep it quiet until now. If everyone was at it it would have been shut down a long time ago. Good luck and enjoy those RTW tickets!

 

[vetrade]

Great to hear of someone outsmarting the system !