Easter 2024 Qantas Classic Reward Booking Advice

[Durin's Bane]

Good evening all.

I was seeking some advice on booking a trip to Europe, Japan or USA in Easter 2024. Some context…

My two daughters and I love to ski – we just got back from a great trip to Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), our first overseas trip in three years due to COVID travel constraints across the globe.

With borders opening up and increased demand, and with lack of CX availability out of PER the ability to get QF classic reward seats is quite limited at the moment especially around Australian holiday times. It looks like I’ve missed the boat with Christmas 2023 award booking availability anywhere from PER.

I’m still a WP (which I’ll likely lose next April after a long 16 years!) so if I can get in a good ski holiday late March/ Early April 2024 that would be perfect – use up some stored points and one last hurrah in the F lounges.

PER-SIN is a very popular route and difficult to secure classic award seats, so I am happy to pay for discount Y through to SIN and then use points on the OW airlines available (QF / BA / AY / MH / JL). Happy to also depart from SYD or MEL to go to USA or Japan.

I am not fixated on a particular location, we are happy to travel anywhere. If we can get to FRA I can coordinate a trip anywhere in Europe, if we can get to NRT/HND I can coordinate Japan, if we can get to LAX/DFW I can coordinate USA. We had a lovely trip to Canada back in end 2019 so was not looking to go back there.


My questions are as follows:

1. To take advantage of when classic reward seats are released, are there any restrictions with me booking the outgoing leg (say PER – SIN – LHR – FRA) 353 days out, and then separately booking the incoming leg (say FRA – LHR – SIN – PER) 353 days out? (I’ve actually never done this before, I’ve only ever done return trips, so I suspect that’s why I’ve missed out on some classic reward seat availability on QF in the past.)

2. School holidays are obviously a busy time, however outside of say the PER – SIN leg, is reward booking availability significantly impacted during Australian Easter school holidays? Are there any particular international routes / destinations affected more than others in this Easter period? Any general tips here?

3. In all my years of travelling with QF, I have never managed to secure classic reward bookings for my whole family on trans-pacific QF flights (e.g. SYD-LAX) however on CX I have previously managed to secure up to four J award tickets long haul (e.g. HKG – YVR). Does anyone have any idea on if and when CX availability will increase? Using CX out of PER we did many Y, Y+ and J trips to destinations around the world via HKG.

4. Does anyone have any other general feedback or advice on securing Qantas classic reward seats for travel at Easter to a northern hemisphere destination? I am seeking to secure three seats.


I appreciate you taking the time to read my long message, and look forward to your feedback or advice. Hopefully the feedback can also support others in the community.

Regards,

DB

 

[kangarooflyer88]

My questions are as follows:

1. To take advantage of when classic reward seats are released, are there any restrictions with me booking the outgoing leg (say PER – SIN – LHR – FRA) 353 days out, and then separately booking the incoming leg (say FRA – LHR – SIN – PER) 353 days out? (I’ve actually never done this before, I’ve only ever done return trips, so I suspect that’s why I’ve missed out on some classic reward seat availability on QF in the past.)

The main drawback that I can think of with booking award flights as two one-ways instead of a roundtrip is that change (5,000 points) and cancellation fees (6,000) would apply to the inbound and outbound tickets separately. However, as you correctly pointed out, by the outbound separate from the inbound you have a bit more flexibility on when to book. Other than that, everything else is the same since QFF classic return awards are priced out the same as two one-way awards. The only notable exception would be booking a Qantas OneWorld award (which lets you travel round the world for less).

2. School holidays are obviously a busy time, however outside of say the PER – SIN leg, is reward booking availability significantly impacted during Australian Easter school holidays? Are there any particular international routes / destinations affected more than others in this Easter period? Any general tips here?

There are some hidden routes and partners you should be aware of. For instance, did you know Qantas has a deal with China Airlines for classic award bookings? This could enable you to fly to Taipei, avoiding the Aussies taking the obvious routings to cash in their QFF points during school holidays.

3. In all my years of travelling with QF, I have never managed to secure classic reward bookings for my whole family on trans-pacific QF flights (e.g. SYD-LAX) however on CX I have previously managed to secure up to four J award tickets long haul (e.g. HKG – YVR). Does anyone have any idea on if and when CX availability will increase? Using CX out of PER we did many Y, Y+ and J trips to destinations around the world via HKG.

No idea. It will take some time for CX to rebuild as an airline.

4. Does anyone have any other general feedback or advice on securing Qantas classic reward seats for travel at Easter to a northern hemisphere destination? I am seeking to secure three seats.

Be patient and creative with your routings and also consider other frequent flyer programs to compliment QF. To give you a concrete example, back in July 2022 I booked flights to Canada for Easter this year using Air Canada's Aeroplan frequent flyer program. I didn't have any points so I bought 160,000 of them for $2800 CAD. I then transferred some of my Canadian AmEx points over to Aeroplan to have a total balance of 220,000 points. From there I started looking for award flights from Sydney to Toronto. Surprise, surprise there was none! However, Aeroplan has a feature where you can add stopovers en-route for 5,000 points which in effect lets you force the award engine to route you through specific cities with known availability. In my case I set my stopover as Zurich for 2 weeks, since I wanted to attend a conference in Europe anyway (and haven't hiked in Switzerland for years now) then continuing on to Toronto, all in J for 110,000 points. Getting back to Australia from North America was also a challenge! Again, I couldn't find any award availability from LAX to SYD, but again could find availability between LA and Seoul and Seoul to Sydney, so again booked a flight from LA to Sydney stopping over in Seoul for 3 days again all in business class for 110,000 points.

I guess the point I'm getting at is it is possible to travel on award tickets during peak travel season but it's gonna take a lot more of your time and creativity to figure out those hidden spots where no one else is looking. Sometimes you want to break the problem down into smaller steps. In my case looking at Australia to Europe and Europe to North America proved to be a much easier problem to solve than Australia to North America. Similarly North America to Asia than Asia to Australia was easier to solve than North America to Australia! I will also point out that Frequent Flyer Solutions, the sister site of this forum does offer a service called award flight assist designed to help you solve this problem without losing too much hair:

Welcome to Frequent Flyer Concierge - Frequent Flyer Solutions

frequentflyer.com.au

 

[HirafuHeartAttack]

I'll add an OT but relevant 2c here and advise against skiing Japan in the late season. Yes you can sometimes get lucky and have some snowfall but the spring skiing is nowhere near as good as North America. A lot of resorts do not groom all that often and staff start to rotate to summer employment, particularly farming.

Happy to answer anything on that front, I did 2 seasons in Niseko as well as 2 years in Canada so fairly clued up on both.

 

[Tiki]

I was in Turkiye last Feb and while I am not a skier, I noticed they do have some nice ski resort areas and IST/SAW might be easier to find award seats to. I did a balloon ride in Cappadocia over snowy fairy chimneys and it was magical!

 

[offshore171]

Good evening all.

I was seeking some advice on booking a trip to Europe, Japan or USA in Easter 2024. Some context…

My two daughters and I love to ski – we just got back from a great trip to Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), our first overseas trip in three years due to COVID travel constraints across the globe.

Envious! That must have been fantastic. Skiing is in their veins over there, especially in Austria.

As for skiing Japan at Easter, I’d take that one off the list though. Spring comes fast in Japan, and it’s not really the place for late season skiing.


There’s a good discussion here about skiing options for April

Anyone skied Alaska in (early) April?

I'm looking at a family ski trip at the start of April. Being late in the northern season, the options are a bit limited. Alaska has been on my radar for years and the Aleyska resort near Anchorage operates until the end of April. The Piste skiing is reportedly quite good, scenery is world...

www.ski.com.au

Some good choices are Aleyska Alaska, Sunshine Village in Canada, Narvik in Norway and some of the Austrian glacier resorts like Solden and Hintertux.

 

[Flyfrequently]

Good evening all.

I was seeking some advice on booking a trip to Europe, Japan or USA in Easter 2024. Some context…

My two daughters and I love to ski – we just got back from a great trip to Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), our first overseas trip in three years due to COVID travel constraints across the globe.

With borders opening up and increased demand, and with lack of CX availability out of PER the ability to get QF classic reward seats is quite limited at the moment especially around Australian holiday times. It looks like I’ve missed the boat with Christmas 2023 award booking availability anywhere from PER.

I’m still a WP (which I’ll likely lose next April after a long 16 years!) so if I can get in a good ski holiday late March/ Early April 2024 that would be perfect – use up some stored points and one last hurrah in the F lounges.

PER-SIN is a very popular route and difficult to secure classic award seats, so I am happy to pay for discount Y through to SIN and then use points on the OW airlines available (QF / BA / AY / MH / JL). Happy to also depart from SYD or MEL to go to USA or Japan.

I am not fixated on a particular location, we are happy to travel anywhere. If we can get to FRA I can coordinate a trip anywhere in Europe, if we can get to NRT/HND I can coordinate Japan, if we can get to LAX/DFW I can coordinate USA. We had a lovely trip to Canada back in end 2019 so was not looking to go back there.


My questions are as follows:

1. To take advantage of when classic reward seats are released, are there any restrictions with me booking the outgoing leg (say PER – SIN – LHR – FRA) 353 days out, and then separately booking the incoming leg (say FRA – LHR – SIN – PER) 353 days out? (I’ve actually never done this before, I’ve only ever done return trips, so I suspect that’s why I’ve missed out on some classic reward seat availability on QF in the past.)

2. School holidays are obviously a busy time, however outside of say the PER – SIN leg, is reward booking availability significantly impacted during Australian Easter school holidays? Are there any particular international routes / destinations affected more than others in this Easter period? Any general tips here?

3. In all my years of travelling with QF, I have never managed to secure classic reward bookings for my whole family on trans-pacific QF flights (e.g. SYD-LAX) however on CX I have previously managed to secure up to four J award tickets long haul (e.g. HKG – YVR). Does anyone have any idea on if and when CX availability will increase? Using CX out of PER we did many Y, Y+ and J trips to destinations around the world via HKG.

4. Does anyone have any other general feedback or advice on securing Qantas classic reward seats for travel at Easter to a northern hemisphere destination? I am seeking to secure three seats.


I appreciate you taking the time to read my long message, and look forward to your feedback or advice. Hopefully the feedback can also support others in the community.

Regards,

DB

Hi DB, can only add in relation to #1, we have always booked our trips as two separate itineraries.
Downside as mentioned is points cost to change/cancel but upside has been getting F and J seats for 2 pax when first released (to Gold)
Great comments from other contributors.
Good luck

 

[Durin's Bane]

The main drawback that I can think of with booking award flights as two one-ways instead of a roundtrip is that change (5,000 points) and cancellation fees (6,000) would apply to the inbound and outbound tickets separately. However, as you correctly pointed out, by the outbound separate from the inbound you have a bit more flexibility on when to book. Other than that, everything else is the same since QFF classic return awards are priced out the same as two one-way awards. The only notable exception would be booking a Qantas OneWorld award (which lets you travel round the world for less).

There are some hidden routes and partners you should be aware of. For instance, did you know Qantas has a deal with China Airlines for classic award bookings? This could enable you to fly to Taipei, avoiding the Aussies taking the obvious routings to cash in their QFF points during school holidays.

No idea. It will take some time for CX to rebuild as an airline.

Be patient and creative with your routings and also consider other frequent flyer programs to compliment QF. To give you a concrete example, back in July 2022 I booked flights to Canada for Easter this year using Air Canada's Aeroplan frequent flyer program. I didn't have any points so I bought 160,000 of them for $2800 CAD. I then transferred some of my Canadian AmEx points over to Aeroplan to have a total balance of 220,000 points. From there I started looking for award flights from Sydney to Toronto. Surprise, surprise there was none! However, Aeroplan has a feature where you can add stopovers en-route for 5,000 points which in effect lets you force the award engine to route you through specific cities with known availability. In my case I set my stopover as Zurich for 2 weeks, since I wanted to attend a conference in Europe anyway (and haven't hiked in Switzerland for years now) then continuing on to Toronto, all in J for 110,000 points. Getting back to Australia from North America was also a challenge! Again, I couldn't find any award availability from LAX to SYD, but again could find availability between LA and Seoul and Seoul to Sydney, so again booked a flight from LA to Sydney stopping over in Seoul for 3 days again all in business class for 110,000 points.

I guess the point I'm getting at is it is possible to travel on award tickets during peak travel season but it's gonna take a lot more of your time and creativity to figure out those hidden spots where no one else is looking. Sometimes you want to break the problem down into smaller steps. In my case looking at Australia to Europe and Europe to North America proved to be a much easier problem to solve than Australia to North America. Similarly North America to Asia than Asia to Australia was easier to solve than North America to Australia! I will also point out that Frequent Flyer Solutions, the sister site of this forum does offer a service called award flight assist designed to help you solve this problem without losing too much hair:

Welcome to Frequent Flyer Concierge - Frequent Flyer Solutions

frequentflyer.com.au

kangarooflyer88, really appreciate the detailed response.

I will proceed with the option of booking two separate Classic Rewards (1x outbound, 1x inbound) to maximise my chance of securing seats.

China Airlines via Taipei sounds like a good option for the school holidays, and I will keep on the radar.

Thanks for directing me towards Frequent Flyer Solutions which I may utilise.

Post automatically merged: Feb 5, 2023

I'll add an OT but relevant 2c here and advise against skiing Japan in the late season. Yes you can sometimes get lucky and have some snowfall but the spring skiing is nowhere near as good as North America. A lot of resorts do not groom all that often and staff start to rotate to summer employment, particularly farming.

Happy to answer anything on that front, I did 2 seasons in Niseko as well as 2 years in Canada so fairly clued up on both.

HirafuHeartAttack, thanks for the advice on Japan skiing late season – based on your advice and offshore171’s advice, I reckon Hakuba will be taken off my list! Europe or North America is the go!

Post automatically merged: Feb 5, 2023

I was in Turkiye last Feb and while I am not a skier, I noticed they do have some nice ski resort areas and IST/SAW might be easier to find award seats to. I did a balloon ride in Cappadocia over snowy fairy chimneys and it was magical!

Tiki, thanks for the advice on Turkey, nothing available from what I can see this coming Xmas, so definitely one to keep in mind for future. Ski season is short though (ends March or so based on my google search) so perhaps not suitable for Easter 2024.

Post automatically merged: Feb 5, 2023

Envious! That must have been fantastic. Skiing is in their veins over there, especially in Austria.

As for skiing Japan at Easter, I’d take that one off the list though. Spring comes fast in Japan, and it’s not really the place for late season skiing.


There’s a good discussion here about skiing options for April

Anyone skied Alaska in (early) April?

I'm looking at a family ski trip at the start of April. Being late in the northern season, the options are a bit limited. Alaska has been on my radar for years and the Aleyska resort near Anchorage operates until the end of April. The Piste skiing is reportedly quite good, scenery is world...

www.ski.com.au

Some good choices are Aleyska Alaska, Sunshine Village in Canada, Narvik in Norway and some of the Austrian glacier resorts like Solden and Hintertux.

offshore171, thanks for the heads up on late season skiing in Japan.

Yes this trip was wonderful, both Austria and Switzerland were incredible, and like you say this winter sport runs in everyone’s veins over there – I am very envious they have the ability to go skiing so easily, compared to Sandgropers like me who have to bear 2-3 flights just to see good snow!

Your recommendations of Alaska, Norway, and Austrian glacier resorts are appreciated!

 

[Durin's Bane]

Hi DB, can only add in relation to #1, we have always booked our trips as two separate itineraries.
Downside as mentioned is points cost to change/cancel but upside has been getting F and J seats for 2 pax when first released (to Gold)
Great comments from other contributors.
Good luck

Flyfrequently, appreciate the confirmation that booking trips as two separate itineraries is the way to go. If I am successful I will be kicking myself that I didn’t do this for the past 16 years to secure more J and F seats!!!

 

[SYD]

Flyfrequently, appreciate the confirmation that booking trips as two separate itineraries is the way to go. If I am successful I will be kicking myself that I didn’t do this for the past 16 years to secure more J and F seats!!!

The consensus here across a number of threads is to book the first outbound flight(s) as soon as you can. The main downside is the taxes and stuff on the return will be charged in local currency. It is possible to call QF and get them to add the return to the existing outbound booking but probably best to leave it in case someone stuffs up the reticketing and you lose your outbound flights…

For the same reason, if you do need to make changes or there’s a schedule change, it’s only one part of the trip that’s being meddled with, not the entire itinerary.

It pays to start searching daily from now or soon to see what’s being released. If you first preference destination isn’t being released but another is showing up predictably, then you should be confident that’s there’s a “Plan B”.

 

[Durin's Bane]

The consensus here across a number of threads is to book the first outbound flight(s) as soon as you can. The main downside is the taxes and stuff on the return will be charged in local currency. It is possible to call QF and get them to add the return to the existing outbound booking but probably best to leave it in case someone stuffs up the reticketing and you lose your outbound flights…

For the same reason, if you do need to make changes or there’s a schedule change, it’s only one part of the trip that’s being meddled with, not the entire itinerary.

It pays to start searching daily from now or soon to see what’s being released. If you first preference destination isn’t being released but another is showing up predictably, then you should be confident that’s there’s a “Plan B”.

Thanks SYD, appreciate the advice, I will definitely book outbound and will be watching like a hawk in the coming 6-8 weeks.

As a test I just tried outbound from Australia (PER / SYD / MEL) to USA destinations for late Jan 2024 and no classic reward seats available on QF operated flights! But interestingly plenty of Y and J classic reward availability in the same time period from SIN to FRA on EK and BA (I would pay for QF in Y from PER to SIN like I did for the trip I just completed).

I also see Y and J availability on JL from SIN to YVR via Tokyo - something that was very attractive was the taxes for these flights were very low (~$40 per person)!