Award tickets back to Australia

[devonindig]

Hi all,

My wife is about to fly from Sydney to Amsterdam for compassionate reasons and will stay in the Netherlands for 3 months. I’ve booked her on a number of of one-way frequent flyer award business class tickets (Emirates, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines) leaving around 16 January and coming back around 16 April to increase her chances of getting home as planned.

I’m worried that she’ll be bumped from the business class award tickets home in favour of full fare customers so thought I’d ask if anyone else knows what her chances are of getting back to Australia on points or if we are better off just booking the full fare now since the price of a one-way business class ticket is not much cheaper than a return. And if we are better off paying for the business class ticket now, any advice on which airlines are the most reliable to book? Thanks!

 

[Robert K]

Well if the return ticket is not much different from a single, seems like a pretty easy decision.

 

[Duffa]

Have you looked at award availability for the next few days for Amsterdam back to Oz.
Point being - if you can see availability it means that the airlines are offering award seats within the load restrictions.
Just a thought

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi all,

My wife is about to fly from Sydney to Amsterdam for compassionate reasons and will stay in the Netherlands for 3 months. I’ve booked her on a number of of one-way frequent flyer award business class tickets (Emirates, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines) leaving around 16 January and coming back around 16 April to increase her chances of getting home as planned.

I’m worried that she’ll be bumped from the business class award tickets home in favour of full fare customers so thought I’d ask if anyone else knows what her chances are of getting back to Australia on points or if we are better off just booking the full fare now since the price of a one-way business class ticket is not much cheaper than a return. And if we are better off paying for the business class ticket now, any advice on which airlines are the most reliable to book? Thanks!

Well... I guess it all depends if the airlines are currently selling their flights with the arrivals cap in mind? If they have award seats available, it seems highly unlikely they are only selling 30 seats per plane on two or three flights a week.

I guess it might be worth trying to find out if the Aust Government has currently placed caps on arrivals as far in advance as April. If not, when are they likely to announce them?

 

[CaptJCool]

Given the experiences to date, there’s A real significant risk you’ll get stuck at one end or the other....

with 36,000? Australians oversea and arrival cap changes made on a whim, and so on so forth, you take your chances. Gosh I recall a UA flight from SFO GETTING cancelled while sitting on the tarmac with zero provision to simply re-book on the next days flight which was full as well.

ideally. Be like the migrants of our forefathers. It was a one way tic to Australia never to return.....yeah yea I get it’s a different world now, but it really is a wing and a prayer on a homeward bound flight....