A bit confused - QF Redemption

[Miss_Kharisma]

Hi Brains Trust,

Apologies if this has been asked before. I've been scouring the community and I'm tripping over myself with the different responses.

I know rewards seats are released around 330 days out, so I think that's the first place I went wrong. I used to be a travel agent and waaaay back then you could only book international flights around 9 months out. and then you had to wait for the return date to be 9 months out which always pushed back the dates you could actually book.

I'm trying to book SYD - LAX (or Dallas / San Fran) Oct 6 - December 4 2023 (flexible with dates), for 2 adults. I have enough points to fly return 1st Class, but I can't find ANY rewards flights on those dates on Qantas. AA and Fiji have reward seats (only in Economy), but I can't find 1 reward seat on Qantas for any of the 3 destinations, in any category, even when I'm flexible with dates, which seems a bit weird? Surely there should be 1 seat available in economy somewhere?

Is there any way to find out if reward seats have been released and every single one is gone, or if they are still to be released?

I know how hard rewards seats are to come by, but I'm uncomfortable about booking and paying when there's not 1 reward flight in any category across 3 destinations so far out?

I can see Premium Economy/Business availability for a couple of dates next month!

Such a 3rd world problem, but really hoping someone might have a bit more insight.

Thank you!

 

[Scr77]

Congrats on your first post. Unfortunately, Qantas international Reward availability sucks. Try using multi flight search and look via other routes. Ie HKG, NAN, TPE, HNL etc. I think there was also talk of another Chinese carrier that had good availability, but I forget the airline.

 

[FlyingFiona]

You will need to be flexible with your dates, I'm afraid. It's a very popular route and so availability is low to begin with and you're looking at a Friday which is prime. 7th and 8th Oct are available on QF in Y (economy).

NB Your title says QR which is actually Qatar so it's a bit misleading - you might want to edit it.

 

[RichardMEL]

Welcome to AFF.

it's more like 355 days for higher statu members for seat release, so you're already at a disadvantage in that any seats would have been grabbed already. Even though Oct/Nov is - or used to be - lower season - there's still huge demand out there.

You might want to try a round about route like MEL-DFW to look for seats as I think less people know that exists or think of it. Yes it would mean a backtrack to west coast, but may be an option.

Or take the seats with FJ if they're there when you want them.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Miss_Kharisma Welcome to posting on AFF

Apologies if this has been asked before. I've been scouring the community and I'm tripping over myself with the different responses.

I know rewards seats are released around 330 days out, so I think that's the first place I went wrong. I used to be a travel agent and waaaay back then you could only book international flights around 9 months out. and then you had to wait for the return date to be 9 months out which always pushed back the dates you could actually book.

I'm trying to book SYD - LAX (or Dallas / San Fran) Oct 6 - December 4 2023 (flexible with dates), for 2 adults. I have enough points to fly return 1st Class, but I can't find ANY rewards flights on those dates on Qantas. AA and Fiji have reward seats (only in Economy), but I can't find 1 reward seat on Qantas for any of the 3 destinations, in any category, even when I'm flexible with dates, which seems a bit weird? Surely there should be 1 seat available in economy somewhere?

Is there any way to find out if reward seats have been released and every single one is gone, or if they are still to be released?

I know how hard rewards seats are to come by, but I'm uncomfortable about booking and paying when there's not 1 reward flight in any category across 3 destinations so far out?

I can see Premium Economy/Business availability for a couple of dates next month!

Such a 3rd world problem, but really hoping someone might have a bit more insight.hank you!

So want AU to USA on Friday 6 Oct and USA to AU on Monday 4 Dec for 2 people as first class awards.
Or AU to USA any time between 6 Oct and 4 Dec?
No need to look and book returns. Book as one way to/from anywhere with availability.
Only the QF A380s have first class. They fly limited routes. The B787 have business class as the top cabin.
2 business awards a lot harder than just 1 award. More than twice as hard.
Multi city can be useful when searching.
New awards can be released at any time.

From/to BNE has in the past had a little more availability, as many people only think SYD when it comes to QF international awards to/from AU. Also look from/to MEL. SYD – SFO due to restart 22 May 2023. Maybe a BNE-SFO route will be established, as was planned before CV19. QF are due to start SYD-AKL-JFK on 14 June. New routes can have availability, as not as well know compared to SYD-LAX which many people only look for. From HNL some flights can be in day time, so OK for a lesser seat

FJ fly's to HNL-SFO-LAX and BNE-SYD-MEL.
AA fly's SYD-LAX. And AKL-DFW from Oct to March.

Are many from QF's USA frequent flyer partners, AA & AS, looking for premium cabin awards. A lot think Australia=Sydney and USA=LAX. Many many people only look for SYD-LAX.

Via Asia is another option. (JL CX)

 

[Miss_Kharisma]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you SO much for your updates. I really appreciated all the help.

Quick update - after scouring every route imaginable about 100 times each, a random economy rewards flight became available for my exact dates out of Sydney so I figured that was the best I was going to do, and booked. That was on Feb 15.

On Tuesday 21 (I think that was the day they made announcements about extra rewards flight being available on Friday), I jumped on and saw there was now a Premium Economy flight available for the leg home. I grabbed it, changed categories and spent what felt like way too many point. Put in my upgrade requests and figured I'd keep my fingers crossed.

Today I figured I may as well have a look and see if anything else had opened up for my flights. OMG. It was torture. I kept getting kicked out, I'd get one step further and then kicked out again. over and over and over. Across 3 different browsers, ad being on hold to Qantas. Finally, I saw that there were J CLASS seats available for my flight over, and FIRST CLASS seats on my trip home! Again, I now officially know what first world problem torture is. I'd have the tickets in my cart, then get booted. Got through again to the payment screen, then got booted. I was so positive they would be gone every time I got back in.

But finally, after an hour - I SECURED MY SEATS!

And then it took another hour to confirm my seat selection. But I got there in the end.

Thank you so much again for everyone who responded to me. I was so worried about posting as I thought people would have a go at me. Your advice was so incredibly helpful.

I'm taking my mum on this trip for her 70th birthday. She's the only one of us who hasn't been lucky enough to ever get an upgrade of any description on anything ever! I'm not going to tell her we got it and I'm going to let her find out when we board the plane. It's going to make her whole entire trip. I absolutely can't wait!

I hope some others have been as lucky as I was this morning.

 

[jpp42]

But finally, after an hour - I SECURED MY SEATS!

And then it took another hour to confirm my seat selection. But I got there in the end.

Glad it's been working for you today. As I see you're new here, one thing is to keep an eye on is that you get your *e-ticket* in the next day or two as well, this is a necessary step for you to be fully sure it's all working right. With Qantas only flights booked online this should normally be okay, but it can be a problem if you had partner airlines in your booking (I see you mentioned Fiji above). If you don't receive your e-ticket PDF itinerary in 48 hours, you should call up and find out why - if the agent doesn't understand the request, hang up and call again. You can also use the web site checkmytrip.com (run by Amadeus, the same company that run's Qantas booking engine), to verify - look for an e-ticket number. If there is no e-ticket number in the email from Qantas or on CheckMyTrip, you are not ticketed and your flights are not guaranteed.