Classic Rewards availability differs between one-way and return

[encryptededdy]

I got a bit caught out by this when I was looking at getting a Platinum Release on flights to Japan - I was so sure certain dates had no business rewards (as I was searching both one way and with multi-city one way), but it turns out that there was classic rewards on the return. Take a look at this;

Searching TYO-SYD on the 10th of May as part of a return trip (you can see the JQ outbound above) - you can see that there's at least 1 J CR seat left on QF26



Now, searching as a one way TYO-SYD;

eh??? where's my award? (It's showing Tokyo Narita, but it is searching both. It's just saying that because all the results are Narita AFAIK)

So either it's a glitch, the flight is limited to AU point-of-sale, or an intentional decision by QF to limit this to return flights only for some reason. I was unable to get it to show up in a ICN-TYO-SYD multi-city, but didn't investigate any further. It is not phantom availability because the same flight existed on Sunday (only findable when searching return), and I was able to book it (and ticketed it). Interestingly the agent on the phone (since I was adding it to an existing booking) wasn't able to see it (I assume they were also searching as a new booking?) until I told them to search for it in the context of my existing booking, then they were able to see it.

Anyway, anyone else seen this? I had always assumed that all CR flights were bookable individually, except those with married segments for domestic connections, certainly didn't expect a return segment married to an outbound segment.

Maybe it's to stop scrapers from scraping these flights?

 

[MELso]

I noticed one screenshot is showing results from TYO while the other is showing results from NRT. Perhaps that’s affecting your results? Have you tried searching on HND?

EDIT - hmm, searching just HND defaults to NRT as there’s no CRs out of HND that day, noting that, as a lowly silver, that J CR wasn’t available (other days where CRs were available out of HND did show TYO) so perhaps that J CR isn’t releasing correctly?

 

[roslynm]

Hi, similar but different, the points cost of rewards tickets, one way vs return. The points cost of a return ticket always seems to be higher.
This is for an economy ticket MEL-NRT. I was able to book one way, each way for 50800 Classic Rewards points. If I searched for a return ticket, the first leg was 50800 Classic Rewards, the return had only Points Plus available at 93000. Same days, same flights.
So, I booked two one way legs Classic Rewards

 

[encryptededdy]

Hi, similar but different, the points cost of rewards tickets, one way vs return. The points cost of a return ticket always seems to be higher.
This is for an economy ticket MEL-NRT. I was able to book one way, each way for 50800 Classic Rewards points. If I searched for a return ticket, the first leg was 50800 Classic Rewards, the return had only Points Plus available at 93000. Same days, same flights.
So, I booked two one way legs Classic Rewards

Oh yeah that's weird. Same issue but in reverse?