Are long haul AA Business Class redemptions actually possible on Qantas?

[yaziyo]

So I'm clicking around the Qantas site trying to work out what classic reward options are possible for a person who wanted to come home to Aus from Europe via the US. Naturally, AA is an option with many trans-atlantic routes from the UK & Europe to all over the states, but no matter if I search for next week, 3 months away, 8 months away or 12 months away, I can't find a single seat available in anything other than Economy no matter the date or route on AA. Same story for flights from the US back to Australia.

Of course, there are alternatives for trans-Atlantic and USA-Aus flights with Qantas points on European airlines, Qantas and Fiji, but the cheaper classic reward redemption rate on AA doesn't seem to be usable on anything other than economy from what I can tell.

Does AA not make premium seats available on Qantas points, is this just a symptom of the current high demand for flights or am I missing some sort of trick?

I'm only QF Bronze status if it matters.

 

[justinbrett]

BA has pretty good availability trans-Atlantic.

Trans-pacific is running at near capacity, cash fares are very high; AA is only just this month resuming the route. You'll struggle to find anything there, if you do it will probably be QF.

I think a recent change to the AAdvantage program is causing some issues with partner redemptions.

 

[encryptededdy]

from the US back to Australia.

@Mattg noted some were added very recently, although I'm unsure if they're all gone yet.

Qantas J availability to the USA

Qantas has just released a bunch of new PE and J award availability on routes to/from the United States, for travel over the coming months. I even spotted a few seats in the week before Christmas. Get in quick! ;)

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[yaziyo]

Thanks for the insights. To be honest I'm mostly just curious if this is an "at the moment" thing or if there's some wider restriction in place with AA (e.g. was it always like this?)

This is theoretical at this stage, just trying to work out what's actually possible.

For what it's worth, for those of you playing at home here's my conclusions if I was trying to do this: for EU-US, Qantas options exist on BA, Air France, KLM, Iberia, and Finn, with a whole stack of combinations of what US cities you can arrive at (flightconnections.com is excellent for this). And if you can avoid leaving from the UK, then Iberia and Finn Air are quite good value due to low carrier charges. UK has an exit tax of something like 200GBP per ticket on PE or business class when flying long distance which makes most rewards flights from UK quite expensive $ wise. I think I saw BA LHR to DFW was something like $1000 in fees, whereas Iberia MAD-DFW was only like $200.

US-AU has less options of course. If you're bronze like me forget about seats on Qantas itself (ironic when using their own program) but Fiji seems achievable if booking far in advance. One advantage of Fiji is that they also have flights from SFO if you don't want to leave the US from LAX. There are also tickets via Asia on JAL or Cathay Pacific but this does make the trip longer and more expensive.

 

[Mwenenzi]

For a QF award on AA you need as MileSAAver award to be available. But as AAdvantage now has dynamic and AAnytime awards far few MileSAAver awards are offered (to every one)

Award travel − AAdvantage program − American Airlines

www.aa.com

 

[SYD]

Thanks for the insights. To be honest I'm mostly just curious if this is an "at the moment" thing or if there's some wider restriction in place with AA (e.g. was it always like this?)

It‘s definitely possible but as mentioned earlier, availability could be very limited and/or try to be flexible choosing your starting point. You might find availability to/from a non hub city rather than the usual suspects.

Here‘s an example (not super relevant to your goal) but at least shows there’s things bookable. I searched for MIA-BOG (usually a lot of central and Sth Am flights hub out of MIA (or DFW). It actually gave a combo of MIA-JFK-BOG but this must be a married segment - I can’t get JFK-BOG by itself.

 

[levelnine]

Here‘s an example (not super relevant to your goal) but at least shows there’s things bookable. I searched for MIA-BOG (usually a lot of central and Sth Am flights hub out of MIA (or DFW). It actually gave a combo of MIA-JFK-BOG but this must be a married segment - I can’t get JFK-BOG by itself.

That's not for USA to Australia, which is what the person was asking about.

To answer the original question, the answer is basically no. AA have basically stopped releasing Mile Saver seats, which is what you need to use QF points on AA flights, in business class on their flights to/from Australia since COVID-19.

It is best to give up on that as an option.

What you will find is that the gap between what is theoretically possible and actually possible to use Qantas award points for has significantly grown in recent years. This is just one example of that.

 

[SYD]

That's not for USA to Australia, which is what the person was asking about.

To answer the original question, the answer is basically no. AA have basically stopped releasing Mile Saver seats, which is what you need to use QF points on AA flights, in business class on their flights to/from Australia since COVID-19.

It is best to give up on that as an option.

What you will find is that the gap between what is theoretically possible and actually possible to use Qantas award points for has significantly grown in recent years. This is just one example of that.

OP was looking for transatlantic flights first. The second question was can you book AA via QF and technically, yes you can.

I did say in my comment the example doesn’t meet the goal but does show that it is possible to book AA saver awards. Finding them is another thing.