Award flights available online but not via call centre.

[flapper]

I'm trying to change my award OW RTW J class itinerary to fly IB from MAD to JFK.
QF website shows availability when I want to fly in Aug 2012 but the call centre says there is no availability.
I've told them it shows online but they say you won't be able to book it but I can go right thru to adding passenger name.
I've tried a number of dates over a number of weeks & I always get "computer says no".
Is it usual for availability to show online but not in the call centre?
I've had it the other way round on a few occasions.
Does anyone have any idea how it may be possible to book this flight.

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF flapper!

The joys of Qantas award booking system. There are various glitches in the award booking engine and this would be one of them.

I have lost count of the number of times I have included flights in the Oneworld award booking only to get to the stage of pressing confirm and finding out the flight is not available.

As far as I understand the Qantas website and the call centre use different front ends but essentially have the same back end system. So if call centre says no availability then there is no availability.

I guess you can check with IB directly to see if there is any award availability but if various QF customer service agents have said no availability not sure how you are going to get them to book it for you.