Booking award flights - disadvantages to booking individual sectors?

[Matt_01]

Freudian slip?

Yes, chubby fingers on a phone and not watching predictive text.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

As suggested up thread, book the one way now. Once the return glights open up, compare the cost of those if you were to (a) add them to your existing booking - this will cost you 5000 points, vs (b) booking the flights as a stand-alone booking. QF resevations will be able to give you the cost of adding the flights to your existing booking.

Then make the decision as to the difference in cost (if any) and whether or not is cheaper to bay the 6000 points.

 

[Matt_01]

(a) add them to your existing booking - this will cost you 5000 points, vs (b) booking the flights as a stand-alone booking.

That is 5000 points per pax.

 

[jase05]

Hard agree.
The EK J seats are not leading class anymore.
And the food and beverage service is pretty poor, very much revolving around their chosen time to wheel the trolleys around, not tailored to the individual like other airlines. Actually more like QF now I think of it ...

I do hear this quite a bit but I must be easy to please as I love the EK J seats on the A380 and have found the service and staff excellent on the times we have used them to Europe. I’m yet to try the QSuites yet though but sounds like they are the bees knees.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I do hear this quite a bit but I must be easy to please as I love the EK J seats on the A380 and have found the service and staff excellent on the times we have used them to Europe. I’m yet to try the QSuites yet though but sounds like they are the bees knees.

While EK's food may be described as 'good cafeteria standard' there's a lot to be said about having such an extensive menu. You compare EK's F (or J) menus to their counterparts and you're spoiled for choice. Plus a huge range of coughtails which you don't often see (actually, that you rarely see) on other airlines.

I had a beef wellington on a DXB-JFK flight last year on EK. Ok, so it was so-so, more of a 'concept' dish in terms of presentation (the pastry was soggy). But it tasted ok and it was good to see something 'of interest' on the menu. Makes a change from the 'steamed fish', 'chicken with preserved lemon' and 'six-leaf salad with sourdough' that is the staple on QF.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

The comments I made about EK food and beverage service were more about the service than the food and beverages themselves.
I found even in J they tended to throw stuff at you during the designated meal service time, then hide in the galley for the rest of the flight.
Unlike EY for example which I found would fit in with your timing.

 

[jaseb]

Is there a "trick" to booking QR reward seats?
ie. I want to book MEL - DOH - CDG

I can get on 361 days out and book MEL - DOH, no worries. But the DOH - CDG flight is the following day, so doesn't open up til the day *after* the MEL - DOH seats become available.

I can't book DOH - CDG on it's own (married segments I presume?) so I'm stuck taking the risk of waiting til 360 days out from the MEL - DOH flight, hoping there's 2 J award seats still available (>24 hrs after they were released), and booking both legs at once.

Can I do anything differently?

 

[Matt_01]

@jaseblenner I was trying to book DOH-MEL a while back and could not get it to work, the QF site returned errors. When I rang QF the reason I was given was that the QF booking system cannot commence a booking from DOH as the booking system cannot charge in Qatari Rial.

You should be able to book MEL-DOH and then add the DOH-CDG segment by ringing QF. This option will burn additional points in change fees.

 

[jaseb]

@jaseblenner I was trying to book DOH-MEL a while back and could not get it to work, the QF site returned errors. When I rang QF the reason I was given was that the QF booking system cannot commence a booking from DOH as the booking system cannot charge in Qatari Rial.

You should be able to book MEL-DOH and then add the DOH-CDG segment by ringing QF. This option will burn additional points in change fees.

Fantastic. I'll book MEL-DOH as soon as it's available and then tack on DOH-CDG by phoning up. Thanks Matt.

 

[RichardMEL]

Just be aware that QR are ruthless with their ticketing deadlines and you have to be careful with this or QR will cancel without warning - usualluy within 24 hours - it's caught a few people out !

 

[jaseb]

Just be aware that QR are ruthless with their ticketing deadlines and you have to be careful with this or QR will cancel without warning - usualluy within 24 hours - it's caught a few people out !

Can you elaborate on this? Are you saying I need to ensure the DOH-CDG segment is added within 24hrs of confirmation of the MEL-DOH leg?

 

[RichardMEL]

I'm saying there are many instances over the years reported here that if QF do not ticket a reward booking on QR then QR will cancel it.

In terms of adding the tag to CDG.. that's a tricky one, but I suspect if it is ticketed with the MEL-DOH adding the sector would be OK but I've not ever done this so can't comment. I am sure others with experiene of QR reward tickets via QF can comment (now that I think of it there may or ma not have been a fix to this issue)

 

[jaseb]

I'm saying there are many instances over the years reported here that if QF do not ticket a reward booking on QR then QR will cancel it.

In terms of adding the tag to CDG.. that's a tricky one, but I suspect if it is ticketed with the MEL-DOH adding the sector would be OK but I've not ever done this so can't comment. I am sure others with experiene of QR reward tickets via QF can comment (now that I think of it there may or ma not have been a fix to this issue)

Okay... I'm following along, but when does a "booking" become "ticketed"?
ie. Is the booking not ticketed on QR once I receive confirmation email from QF and points/dollars are deducted?

edit: BTW sorry for these novice questions.

 

[RichardMEL]

Okay... I'm following along, but when does a "booking" become "ticketed"?
ie. Is the booking not ticketed on QR once I receive confirmation email from QF and points/dollars are deducted?

edit: BTW sorry for these novice questions.

ah! Not novice at all!

This is, more or less, the crux of the issues that had been seen.

See QF may deduct points, bill your CC for the taxes and all that stuff but not actually issue the ticket right away. When it's QF on QF or most partners that's fine more or less but QR has had a very strict policy of killing reservations that have not been ticketed within a very short timeframe. By that I mean actually having a ticket issued, with ticket number in the PNR. Not something you can easily see (except using something like CheckMyTrip) but if you get an email with E-ticket receipt this would show the ticket number.

The problems arose when QF would, sometimes, take their sweet time in doing the background processing - either due to it needin some sort of manual intevention, or even there being a problem with the booking, like needing APIS entered for US flights, or even maybe a CC# issue or name issue. Anyway when that happened, people had been in situations where they had a "booking" cancelled even though they'd done nothing wrong per se.

Not trying to alarm you or anything.. as I said this issue MAY have been resolved (I seem to recall a post or thread somewhere).

The key I guess, either way, is to ask the agent or whatever to ticket it right away, or at least enquire about the process - specially to add on DOH-CDG.

Again, I am sure others will chime in here - and I hope I haven't confused things with somehing that is now a non issue.

 

[motef]

Okay... I'm following along, but when does a "booking" become "ticketed"?
ie. Is the booking not ticketed on QR once I receive confirmation email from QF and points/dollars are deducted?

edit: BTW sorry for these novice questions.

Basically book it your MEL -DOH online and if you dont get a ticket number email immediately ring up QF and ask them for the ticket number, stay on the line until they give you the ticket number, dont hangup and be persistent

A booking is not a ticket and as others have said some airlines will cancel a Booking if the airline (in your case QF) do not issue the ticket in a certain period.

 

[jaseb]

is

No you haven't confused me at all, in fact your response has made everything very clear to me - so thankyou for that!

Sounds like a classic case of IT systems not talking to one another efficiently!

From what you've said, it may even be worthwhile phoning QF immediately after "booking" the MEL-DOH on QR leg and asking for it to be ticketed right away, if not listed in the PNR/booking confirmation.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

No you haven't confused me at all, in fact your response has made everything very clear to me - so thankyou for that!

Sounds like a classic case of IT systems not talking to one another efficiently!

From what you've said, it may even be worthwhile phoning QF immediately after "booking" the MEL-DOH on QR leg and asking for it to be ticketed right away, if not listed in the PNR/booking confirmation.

Well worth it.
Essentially the online reservation system creates a reservation and places a hold on your credit card.
Then it goes to Qantas Finance who do the actual charge to your credit card and may use the existing hold or do the charge anew (which will mean the hold stays for 7-10 days before disappearing).
It may not be ticketed until Qantas Finance have got around to doing their part - which may not be for a day or two.
So prompt them!

 

[KarenD]

Very timely that this thread has come up. I am planning to do something very similar. SYD to DOH and then DOH to LHR. Did anyone else notice today that all the direct flights form SYD to DOH have disappeared from the Qantas system? Or is it just me. I've been tracking it for 3 weeks and it's the same every day 10am like clockwork the flights become available, but today they didn't and everything in the past is gone too, even in economy. Think its just a glitch and will be fine in the next 24 hrs or so?

 

[Battymum]

Yes - I have noticed this - nothing on QR to DOH - I have been checking almost daily for months - and the last couple of days nothing from SYD-MEL or ADL.
Crossing my fingers.

 

[KarenD]

It was there from SYD yesterday, I've been doing the same thing and checking every day. Now that I'm two days away from booking, the whole thing falls apart. I confirmed with Qantas they can see the flights at their end (although no seats in business but hey, it's 2pm now). Will keep an eye in things and be prepared to call on Sunday if in need to.