Article: Qantas’ Frustrating Application of Married Segment Logic

[AFF Editor]

Qantas’ Frustrating Application of Married Segment Logic is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

Qantas' Frustrating Application of Married Segment Logic

Qantas is routinely blocking domestic connections on international Classic Flight Reward itineraries when treating them as married segments.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[asdf1234]

You could book the Adelaide-Sydney and Sydney-Hong Kong flights on separate tickets and pay 96,000 Qantas points + $193. However, Qantas probably would not check your bag all the way through from Adelaide to Hong Kong, since you would have separate tickets. Perhaps even more frustratingly, this also means that you would not be protected in the case of a delay to the Adelaide-Sydney flight.

1) Bags would be through-checked per Qantas policy for connecting flights, even if they are on separate PNRs. Source: Interline and Through Checked Baggage Policy, Qantas.

2) Anecdotally, I was told by two QF agents that for connecting flights on separate PNRs, if the tickets were purchased and issued by QF (has 081 ticket number), the flights would be considered 'protected' by QF. My guess is that they are referring to the Qantas and Other Airline Schedule Change Policy, specifically under 081 Qantas Tickets Connecting Flights, where it states:

When you have a schedule change on a connecting flight it must be on the same Qantas (081) ticket for you to apply the Qantas Schedule Change Policy. This policy does not apply to connecting flights held on a separate ticket.

Never had to try this before so take point 2 with a grain of salt, and be prepared for a lot of arguing with the agents.

 

[Guvner]

I think there's a typo with the Adelaide to Sydney flight.

 

[Tiki]

It's even worse! Married segments apply even if a partner changes a flight on you and emails you a new schedule. AA left me with a 1:20 connection in DFW on MTY-DFW-MIA-BON. This wasn't me changing my mind, it was AA changing a flight from around 13:30 to 12:30 and pushing me onto a 16:30 flight. I wanted the 12:30 or the earlier 10:15 one. The QF people could book the 10:15 one in Y award class. But they couldn't cancel the 16:30 flight AA foisted on me. It was either cancel the whole thing and start from scratch (impossible because the MIA-BON segment is no longer available), get a refund with cash flights pricing at $1200 or accept the flights AA reaccommodated me on. The QF staff were willing to give me the flight I wanted. The computer wouldn't let them.

 

[aikman]

It's not necessarily a bad thing. In the Hong Kong example in the article, it may be frustrating for the Adelaide resident but it would be utter joy for the Sydney resident.

It may be that the allocation for Adelaide has already been exhausted.

I'd like to think that married segments gives everyone in every location a fairer allocation of award seats.

 

[exceladdict]

It's not necessarily a bad thing. In the Hong Kong example in the article, it may be frustrating for the Adelaide resident but it would be utter joy for the Sydney resident.

It may be that the allocation for Adelaide has already been exhausted.

I'd like to think that married segments gives everyone in every location a fairer allocation of award seats.

But it makes it incredibly difficult to plan complex itineraries like oneworld awards, which you'd usually piece together flight by flight and assume that if a seat in U is available, it's available without strings attached.

@AFF Editor was QF invited to comment on this as to whether it's policy or just a system issue? Is there anywhere in the FF T&Cs that prevent them being booked as a combined ticket? Can one force their booking if you have access to HBA?

 

[AIRwin]

I'd like to think that married segments gives everyone in every location a fairer allocation of award seats.

Fairer but not simpler

 

[aikman]

But it makes it incredibly difficult to plan complex itineraries like oneworld awards, which you'd usually piece together flight by flight and assume that if a seat in U is available, it's available without strings attached.

Difficult, yes, but not necessarily a bad thing. Make it too easy and all award seats will disappear very quickly. Married segments allow those who are willing to put in the time and effort to search for every possible combination of origin and destination to find seats that the majority of people have missed.

 

[justinbrett]

@AFF Editor, did you try phoning Qantas and asking for the seats to be released?

I've done this countless times and it's never been a problem.

 

[azza007]

While it is not a problem for those who are WP or P1 who can request seats be released but certainly an issue for everyone else.

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

Married segments are a big problem for qf premium fares ex-nz. Very often will find most legs in a multi-leg journey are downgraded to economy, especially for Australia domestic flights. Sometimes Asia or Europe flights show only in economy for all 4 flights despite being on a business class fare with business class availability if do separately trans-tasmsn return and Oz to asia/Europe return on the same flights.

 

[bussyboy]

Was trying to help a friend book a classic rewards fare SYD-LAX-xLAS last week

Can get to LAX on QF metal, or AA, for 41,900 points


But you can't get to LAS by flying on QF11 and have to go on AA across the pacific on a classic reward, instead paying over 6x the points:

I can only get classic rewards if it's AA the whole way... maybe it's a AA issue in this case, I'm not sure - certainly frustrating from a customer's perspective!

And salt to the wound, LAX to LAS:

 

[vetrade]

Was trying to help a friend book a classic rewards fare SYD-LAX-xLAS last week

Can get to LAX on QF metal, or AA, for 41,900 points
View attachment 315599

View attachment 315600
I can only get classic rewards if it's AA the whole way... maybe it's a AA issue in this case, I'm not sure - certainly frustrating from a customer's perspective!

And salt to the wound, LAX to LAS:
View attachment 315601

I understand your dilemma but the LAX - LAS or LAS - LAX leg has been problematic with regard to award availability for years, irrespective of whether an LAX - Australia flight is in the mix or not. There are many flights from many US cities to LAS where reward seats are relatively straightforward to find but the traffic between LAX and LAS is so heavy that AA seemingly sees no need to release any reward seats so finding any is very difficult for that route. There are numerous flights between LAX and LAS daily and it's such a short and cheap flight that we've found it easier in the past to just buy a revenue ticket.

 

[vetrade]

A real nuisance is the fact that if you live in MEL and want to use points for a classic reward on QF63 between SYD and JNB, QF either won't let you book any reward flight from MEL -SYD to connect to JNB. At best, if you are lucky, you might get a reward seat on a MEL - SYD flight with a lousy connection time, often wityh an o'nite stay in SYD.

 

[SYD]

I would have thought the example listed are the sorts of reasons there are married segments - especially for rewards.

When QF was flying LAX<->JFK it was common to see J reward seats JFK-LAX-SYD but not on the same LAX-SYD ie some additional seats held back to allow booking JFK-SYD.

 

[AFF Editor]

I think there's a typo with the Adelaide to Sydney flight.

View attachment 315566

Thanks, have fixed this.

 

[AFF Editor]

Is there anywhere in the FF T&Cs that prevent them being booked as a combined ticket? Can one force their booking if you have access to HBA?

No, there is no such clause in the T&Cs that requires Qantas to make any particular flight or combination of flights available to book as a Classic Flight Reward. So Qantas is not doing anything wrong, as such - it's just inconvenient for a large group of people.

 

[AFF Editor]

@AFF Editor, did you try phoning Qantas and asking for the seats to be released?

I've done this countless times and it's never been a problem.

I'm sure if you requested for these seats to be released as a Platinum member, you'd have a good chance of being successful. But the average person does not have this luxury, unfortunately.

 

[anchew]

I've had something similar happen to me. I was able to find MEL-SYD-SCL return using multi-city, but get an error when trying to complete for the booking. I ended up sucessfully making the booking by calling QF. Although I'm WP so not sure if worked for me due to my status

 

[justinbrett]

I'm sure if you requested for these seats to be released as a Platinum member, you'd have a good chance of being successful. But the average person does not have this luxury, unfortunately.

Sure they can. I've had mine released from Cape Town.

In this case the seat is there, there is availability on a single leg, once the operator can see this, it becomes a technical issue. I've never had anyone say the phrase "married segment" to me. They've always just gone away and fixed it (granted, it usually involves being put on hold for a long time). I'm not entirely sure the average call centre worker knows what a married segment is.