Combining separate award bookings

[Jpmoore100]

Hi there. I’ve booked award business class flights for Sept 2020 on two separate bookings: Mel-Singapore with Qantas, then Singapore to Rome via London with BA. Naturally I have two separate booking references. I did this because just searching Qantas.com for Melbourne to Rome did not give me any business class fares, let alone the 5 I needed for my family. Anyway, we have a 5 hour stop over in Singapore. I’d like to avoid having to exit through Singapore immigration, get bags, check in with BA and then go through immigration again. Is it possible for me to combine the bookings to avoid this, and stay in transfer area?

If not, will it make any difference if we just have carry on luggage?

Thank you.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi there. I’ve booked award business class flights for Sept 2020 on two separate bookings: Mel-Singapore with Qantas, then Singapore to Rome via London with BA. Naturally I have two separate booking references. I did this because just searching Qantas.com for Melbourne to Rome did not give me any business class fares, let alone the 5 I needed for my family. Anyway, we have a 5 hour stop over in Singapore. I’d like to avoid having to exit through Singapore immigration, get bags, check in with BA and then go through immigration again. Is it possible for me to combine the bookings to avoid this, and stay in transfer area?

If not, will it make any difference if we just have carry on luggage?

Thank you.

Unfortunately you can't combine bookings once they are made in separate PNRs.

To get around your problem you could have used the multi-city tool on the QF website - MEL-SIN followed by SIN-LHR and then LHR-FCO (or you coud have just tried SIN-FCO).

Buying separate tickets would also have incurred additional taxes for SIN.

Your options... search now for availability on the QF site SIN-FCO. You might have options come up on Emirates for example. If you can find EK availability you will find its much cheaper because EK and QF are on the same award table. At the moment you are paying sector prices.

If you can find it, call QF to see your options, it might be cheaper to cancel your BA bookings (6000 points per person) and to add the EK flights to your existing MEL-SIN booking (which will be 5000 points per person). This may actually work out cheaper and then all your flights will be on the one ticket, bags checked through, and save on points and taxes.

Emirates is usually wide open for availability out of SIN. You could use multi-city to search SIN-DXB and DXB-FCO (cutting out London). You might even find worst case that the family might be split over two flights SIN-FCO.

 

[Jpmoore100]

Thanks very much for your reply. I ended up cancelling and rebooking for the following day, using your advice. Ended up costing me 60k in points in cancellation fees, but saved $600 in charges. Valuable lesson learned!

 

[Jpmoore100]

Could I please trouble you for help getting home? We are happy to fly out of Rome, Paris or London back to Melbourne. What’s the best routes to try on the multi city search for business class?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Could I please trouble you for help getting home? We are happy to fly out of Rome, Paris or London back to Melbourne. What’s the best routes to try on the multi city search for business class?

I'd be looking at Emirates - either the whole way, or via somewhere in Asia... you could search via SIN (might be good availability given Qantas has an A380) or via Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila, Jakarta.

Flying out of London in a premium cabin will cost you £££ in the luxury departure tax, so leave from Rome or Paris if you can.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

By the way - try and keep to airlines within one of the different award tables - you'll save a lot of points by not switching between award tables.

For example, Emirates and Qantas are on the one table... keeping to those two airlines means you get the 'through fare' where the total points required is based on the mileage frmo origin to destination.

If you were to use BA, they're on a different award table. This is fine so long as you only use airlines in the same table as BA.

If you switch between BA and Qantas - that's two separate tables - it means you pay separately for each set of flights. Can work out to be much more expensive.

Basically AA, QF and EK are on one table, all others on another.

 

[Jpmoore100]

Thank you again. Is there a trick to search for Emirates flights?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you again. Is there a trick to search for Emirates flights?

There shouldn't be. Just use DXB as a sector in the multi-city tool - so FCO-DXB, CDG-DXB (etc), then look for DXB-SIN (and so on). You could try and cut the work down by searching FCO-SIN (see if the option via DXB comes up, it might well do).

The QF site is not good at showing connections as you found out I was looking for the USA last year and nothing at all out of SYD or MEL. Doing multi city MEL-SIN then SIN-JFK bought up heaps of availability on the QF A380 followed by the EK A380.

 

[Jpmoore100]

There shouldn't be. Just use DXB as a sector in the multi-city tool - so FCO-DXB, CDG-DXB (etc), then look for DXB-SIN (and so on). You could try and cut the work down by searching FCO-SIN (see if the option via DXB comes up, it might well do).

The QF site is not good at showing connections as you found out I was looking for the USA last year and nothing at all out of SYD or MEL. Doing multi city MEL-SIN then SIN-JFK bought up heaps of availability on the QF A380 followed by the EK A380.

I’m probably doing something wrong but the searches I am doing with those cities either fly to London first on BA (and therefore incur the luxury tax I assume) or go to Moscow on Siberia Airlines before connecting with an Emirates in Dubai. I cannot bring up an Emirates flight from either Rome or Paris with Emirates. I’d be really grateful for any tips.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m probably doing something wrong but the searches I am doing with those cities either fly to London first on BA (and therefore incur the luxury tax I assume) or go to Moscow on Siberia Airlines before connecting with an Emirates in Dubai. I cannot bring up an Emirates flight from either Rome or Paris with Emirates. I’d be really grateful for any tips.

There may be no availability, or it may actually be too early for Sept 2020 (I'm not sure of the exact window where EK opens for QF members). Yuo could try a sample date a month earlier to get an idea of whether or not seats might be available.

If you connect straight through in London (no stopovers), you don't pay the luxury departure tax. It's only for flights originating in London. o

 

[kevrosmith]

If you're booking for September 2020, then you're probably still too early for most frequent flyer programs to have released their reward seats. EK only release 330 days in advance (so only up to mid-August as of today) and QR are 361 days in advance (so up to mid-Sept as of today). CX, JL and MH are 360 days, BA 354 and QF 353 if you have some status with them, otherwise 297 days for premium seats. MU is 365 days, if you don't mind MU and going via PVG (never done it myself sorry, so have no opinion.)

Start with the latter sector... search from OW hubs (eg. NRT, KUL, SIN, DXB, DOH) with direct flights to Aussie major ports (SYD, MEL, BNE, ADL PER...). If you're not familiar with which airlines fly to which port, use a tool such as ✈ FlightConnections.com - All flights worldwide on a flight map! or look up the airline's destinations map.

(QF never allow you to search from DOH, but use a known alternate QR origin and use Multi-city tool to start at that port to DOH and then DOH to Australia...)

Then once you identify your inbound leg, use multi-city tool to search from European port to that location. E.g. if you find JL flight from NRT-MEL, then search LHR-NRT (assuming the LHR-MEL search doesn't show NRT option by default).

Once again, if you have flexibility for origin port in Europe, look up which ports each airline flies from.... e.g. MXP or VCE may have more availability on QR or EK than FCO.

 

[Jpmoore100]

If you're booking for September 2020, then you're probably still too early for most frequent flyer programs to have released their reward seats. EK only release 330 days in advance (so only up to mid-August as of today) and QR are 361 days in advance (so up to mid-Sept as of today). CX, JL and MH are 360 days, BA 354 and QF 353 if you have some status with them, otherwise 297 days for premium seats. MU is 365 days, if you don't mind MU and going via PVG (never done it myself sorry, so have no opinion.)

Start with the latter sector... search from OW hubs (eg. NRT, KUL, SIN, DXB, DOH) with direct flights to Aussie major ports (SYD, MEL, BNE, ADL PER...). If you're not familiar with which airlines fly to which port, use a tool such as ✈ FlightConnections.com - All flights worldwide on a flight map! or look up the airline's destinations map.

(QF never allow you to search from DOH, but use a known alternate QR origin and use Multi-city tool to start at that port to DOH and then DOH to Australia...)

Then once you identify your inbound leg, use multi-city tool to search from European port to that location. E.g. if you find JL flight from NRT-MEL, then search LHR-NRT (assuming the LHR-MEL search doesn't show NRT option by default).

Once again, if you have flexibility for origin port in Europe, look up which ports each airline flies from.... e.g. MXP or VCE may have more availability on QR or EK than FCO.

Thank you very much again. I've done some practice searches, assuming we were coming home 13 September (the furtherest Qantas goes as of today - we actually want to come home on 1, 2 or 3 October). I can get Sing-Mel business class seats on Qantas for the 13th, but for the life of me I cannot get business class seats from Rome, Paris, or London to Singapore on the same date. I can only see economy seats, AND we'd have to go via Hong Kong.

I realise from what you said that it would be too early to search for EK seats from Rome to Singapore, because they are only released 330 days in advance. But by then, the QF business class seats from Sing-Mel would be snapped up.

I am worried we couldn't even get EK seats all the way. I did an EK search for mid-August, and could only get to Singapore business class using multi-city Rome-DXB, DXB-SIN, SIN-Mel.

Any more thoughts?

Thank you very much

Jonathon

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Just book the Sin - Mel now, and pay a 5000 point change fee (per person) to add the flights from europe when they open up.

 

[Jpmoore100]

Thank you for another great tip.

I suppose another option, given earlier release dates, is to try to book FCO-SIN via somewhere if business class seats are avail on QR, CX or MH, then add Sin-Mel on QF when available. I have had play with that option assuming we were coming home earlier, and can't get 5 business class seats 360/361 days from today.

Maybe they have more limited availability than QF and EK?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I thought you said QF was available SIN-MEL? You can book that now. Then wait for EK availability FCO-DXB-SIN. They have multiple daily flights to both those ports (rome and singapore), so at worst you could always split the party into two, and probably only be a couple hours apart from each other.

Another thing to consider is the final flight SIN-MEL... being so short premium economy is probably ok as an emergency standby. So you could always put 3 or 4 of you in business and the other on PEY if absolutely necessary,

 

[Jpmoore100]

Sorry - I wasn't clear. I've just been doing test searches in advance. We are not flying back home from Rome until 1 October 2020, so for any OW airline it's too early. I am just doing tests at the moment each day to see what's available now as an indication of what is likely to be available in a few weeks time.

Yesterday and the day before I could get 5 Sin-Mel QF business (checking pretty close to 10am each day) for the furtherest day possible, so I thought that leg was in the bag. But when I did the same check this morning just after 10, there were no business class seats for even 2 adults, only 2 first class seats, and no premium economy. Maybe they were snapped up, or maybe QF didn't release any business class for that flight.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You’ll be able to find something. Between the multiple emirates and QF flights, either non-stop, via SIN, or even via SYD, you’ll be able to get the family home, even if split.