Booking award flights

[GoTheCats]

Hi All,

This is my first post so be patient

I am planning to book award flights 2 adults and 2 kids in Dec'10 in J. I am expecting 60K QFF points in May'10 and because of that i am short of points now and cannot book award flights even though seats are available.

My question is there a way i can let qantas know that i will be having this points in May'10 and they will let me book the flights?

Else what is my alternative as i dont want to be in a situation by May all the award flights are gone...

Your help is appreciated

BTW my status is silver and will be gold by Aus'10 due to travel activities.

 

[jamesatfish]

Welcome to AFF - I never thought I'd hang around here long enough to say that myself!

To the best of my knowledge Qantas don't have a 'buy now pay later' scheme for points redemptions - if you don't have the points in your account you won't be able to book the flights.

Depending on the level of the shortfall you can purchase 'top-up' points but only up to a certain percentage of the total points cost. Given you're buying 4 RTW J tickets (which should come to around 1M points), needing to top up by 60K points might well fall under the top up threshold. I've never done this myself however so I'd check with Qantas.

If you're only 60K short this also falls within the 100K per annum family transfer limit, so perhaps you can borrow points from a relation to book the tickets now and pay them back when your points are credited in May.

One the other hand, I might recommend that you make some of the bookings now for the more difficult sectors, and add the easier ones once your points come online.

For instance, use your points to book the flights out of and back into Australia right now as those flights are typically the more difficult to book using points, especially in the premium cabins.

When you get the remaining 60K points, ring the call centre and add trans-atlantic and intra-continental flights into the booking, which will convert it to a RTW award redemption once you meet the criteria (minimum stay, different OW airlines etc). I've never had any issues finding trans-atlantic points flights at the last minute, even in F, so you shouldn't find yourself in the situation where you can't book those last flights closer to the travel date.

This will cost you in terms of the re-booking fee (2500 points per person) but will give you piece of mind by booking the harder seats first.

 

[GoTheCats]

Thanks for your reply. I have asked around my family members but most of them are with KF program. As you suggest i might start booking for difficult sectors so that way at least i have some booking confirmed