School holidays in 2022 are in mid April, I have checked and started making bookings around the dates. The lack of rewards post 25/26 is most likely to doe with the Northern summer/ winter schedule change and there have been threads (one I started), posts in the SQ threads about rewards flights not being available towards the end of March. As by chance I called QF yesterday to see if I could get seats released to JP in early Apr 22 and was advised that their schedules post 26 Mar 22 are not yet loaded. These are some other threads:
Captain - can you share some specific dates and routes? I tried several days between MEL and CDG in March and still getting nothing for 2 pax in J on QR
Probably should have been clearer in my objective.
We're looking to book a OWA in J for around May next year (after having to cancel previously booked OWAs for May 21, Sep 21 and finally Oct 21). The first part of the journey was to fly Australia (any port) to Zurich hopefully using the opportunity to sample QR's famous QSuites.
So the objective has been to snag 2 J seats (QSuites) on QR from BNE, SYD, MEL, PER or ADL direct to DOH and then on to ZRH - no stopover. In our previous - now cancelled - itineraries we'd managed to do that via ADL. But it seems no longer available to QF members.
In the earlier parts of this thread others have confirmed the same experience as me - KVS in great detail - that QR was only making at most a single J award seat available to QF customers on all flights from Australian ports direct to DOH. This was despite BA and JR websites showing sometimes up to 4 seats available.
My attention however was grabbed when you posted that you'd managed to find 2 seats on some flights although on re-reading your post I think I've assumed you were referencing QR flights when you were probably referring to OW airlines in general.
Although we're planning for May - for which no seats have yet been released - I was interested to see that maybe there is some hope. So I've been spending a lot of time searching throughout March - even though we're not travelling then - just to see if it's true. I only searched flights to CDG instead of ZRH in case it made a difference - it didn't.
It just seems to be QR policy - maybe as "punishment" for QF's alliance with EK - as others have suggested.
School holidays in 2022 are in mid April, I have checked and started making bookings around the dates. The lack of rewards post 25/26 is most likely to doe with the Northern summer/ winter schedule change and there have been threads (one I started), posts in the SQ threads about rewards flights not being available towards the end of March. As by chance I called QF yesterday to see if I could get seats released to JP in early Apr 22 and was advised that their schedules post 26 Mar 22 are not yet loaded. These are some other threads:
There lies your issue - if you search MEL-DOH, DOH-ZRH, you will get the availability defined for each of those two flights separately. If MEL-DOH has only 1 U class seat, it will only show one.
In contrast, if there's 2 seats available as MEL-DOH-ZRH with a connection, you will never see that via multi city search if you search as MEL-DOH, DOH-ZRH. You must search as MEL-ZRH to see those 2 seats.
I agree with adenda - this is totally consistent with my experiences - BA and AA offer more Qatar award J seats vs Qantas in flights from Australia to / from Doha.
I just wonder - who is it who is screwing Australians - Qatar or Qantas ?
@adenda so your objective to get x2 J from AU to EU preferably in Qsuites. After seeing your post above out of curiosity I searched x2 MEL-ZRH on 23 Mar 22 and can see options with QR however you need to go through either DPS or HKG.
If your overall plan is to get close to the mileage cap these may not be an option, if this is not the case and you just want get the Qsuites these options may work. Also if it is just the Qsuite objective you are after QR could swap the aircraft be if from AU or any other location to an aircraft with different seating.
@ozflier I agree with your comments, all the OW airlines seem to have alliances that are, just say "closer than others" on certain routes cannot comment on AA availability between Australia to / from Doha but agree there seems to be more availability through BA, I wonder if the QF/EK partnership has anything to do with this. Another route that springs to mind is AU-JP although the JL awards are reasonable and consistent with QF, BA seems to get more.
@adenda so your objective to get x2 J from AU to EU preferably in Qsuites. After seeing your post above out of curiosity I searched x2 MEL-ZRH on 23 Mar 22 and can see options with QR however you need to go through either DPS or HKG.
Just to add for that itinerary via DPS, that is a case where I'd potentially be looking at a multi city... trying to get an award on the QF service MEL-SYD-DPS to take advantage of flat beds SYD-DPS rather than the 737 ex MEL!
@Matt_01 I'm aware of the options via DPS, HKG and KUL as well- they regularly come up in searches.
AKL comes up as well occasionally - and that's around 17 hours! - but too long (in distance) for our planned itinerary. KUL is my fallback option but, having managed to snare direct flights back in 2019 for our May 2020 itinerary, I was hopeful of doing it again. 13 hours approx. would be a more rewarding QSuites experience than 7 approx. from KUL. (MEL to KUL is with MH)
The HKG option would work except our itinerary breaks 35K miles with that routing and the flights ex DPS aren't QSuites I believe.
Just to add for that itinerary via DPS, that is a case where I'd potentially be looking at a multi city... trying to get an award on the QF service MEL-SYD-DPS to take advantage of flat beds SYD-DPS rather than the 737 ex MEL!
I wonder if anyone with only one pax in the pnr has taken the QR award seat on the QFF site and seen if it were replaced by another single award J seat.
I would try but I have 2 on my booking!
I wonder if anyone with only one pax in the pnr has taken the QR award seat on the QFF site and seen if it were replaced by another single award J seat.
I would try but I have 2 on my booking!
After reading your post I gave this a go on the QF site. I have a J rewards booking for MEL-DOH-JFK for one PAX. I did a search on the same date as my travel and there was no more availability with QR other than Y.
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I wonder if anyone with only one pax in the pnr has taken the QR award seat on the QFF site and seen if it were replaced by another single award J seat.
I would try but I have 2 on my booking!
After reading your post I gave this a go on the QF site. I have a J rewards booking for MEL-DOH-JFK for one PAX. I did a search on the same date as my travel and there was no more availability with QR other than Y.
@adenda, I did not, I have the seating I was after. I see very little point in looking at what may be available through JL or BA if I do not have enough miles or Avios to redeem and even if there was more seating available via those sites it does not mean QF can get them. I just work with what is available via QF and sure some carriers are better than others but getting the J seats can be important than the carrier.
@adenda, I did not, I have the seating I was after. I see very little point in looking at what may be available through JL or BA if I do not have enough miles or Avios to redeem and even if there was more seating available via those sites it does not mean QF can get them. I just work with what is available via QF and sure some carriers are better than others but getting the J seats can be important than the carrier.
Understand Matt - I was just curious if reward search engines other than QF (eg. JAL, BA) were showing any J seats where QF showed nil after your single booking.
I once called QF to query the discrepancy between availabilty on QR when searched via QF vs BA and was told essentially it's up to QR how many seats they release and to who. No surprise there. But they did go on to mention that often when the J (or any class) allocation is exhausted further seats can sometimes be released by airlines. So I was curiious to know if this ever happened - your post #52 suggests not for QR seats.
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