Is booking rewards flights always this difficult?

[Zanzara]

All airlines “hoard” seats for paying pax. There is only a handful of seats released for awards on each flight.

Indeed & some airlines, such as QF, choose not to release ANY seats on some flights or routes or in some premium cabins at all.

 

[Silvia]

I’d dare to say you were lucky to get 2.
I managed to get 2 J to Europe but last leg in economy 5 months prior the flight. But to be fair, with the way redemptions are, if I get 3/4 in J x2, I’ll suck it up and burn the points

 

[RichardMEL]

Don't you think it's a bit rich of Qantas to post award seats on other partner airlines on their website, expecting them to be released and taken, but 'hoard' their own seats for paying pax? I wonder what % of Qantas's seats are award compared to other airlines.

LOL right?

You do understand these partner airline reward seats are those released by that airline to their flyers as well?

QF practice revenue management like any airline. The fact that, for example, theres usually a fair amount of availability on China Eastern, for example, says more about where that airline is at in terms of premium cabin bookings than it does about QF's ability to leverage yield from its own customers and routes IMO.

Your statement alsm implies that QF never releases any seats for rewards at all which is clearly untrue. Now they may not be available, or have already been snapped up by others ahead of you, but does't mean they weren't there.

In fact, QF has reaxed their policy considerably - I am sure many of us will remember the days when QF actually published that they had zero availability in transpac J and F to the US period. As in you could not get a seat. ever. These days, that's absolutely not the case.

Could QF release more? Sure. Clearly their RM forecasts say otherwise - and they'll take $$$$ yield over a FF seat any day of the week - like most airlines.

It is a valid question though regarding the % of seats made available for reward across airlines - but this clearly would be commercially sensitive information because it would reflect bookings and revenue... so good luck ever finding out. Plus, remember if seats are made available on an unpopular route, or for example in Economy on a more popular route, whwn you may desire a premium seat - does that then makd that not count? It may be if your goal is to get, for example, a family of 5 to LA in Y (and I know of several who have done this with success and happy with the results).

Everyone's mileage varies.

 

[RichardMEL]

Indeed & some airlines, such as QF, choose not to release ANY seats on some flights or routes or in some premium cabins at all.

Ah yes, HNL-SYD

because, you know, they can get the paying customer.....

At any rate other airlines heavily restrict partner access - for example SQ does not allow ANY redemption, in any cabin, on 77W or A380 services to many Star Alliance partners...

And you know what.. it's their programs and they can run it the way they like.. just like QF.

We, as customers, can take our business elsewhere (eg: AS)

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Qantas award booking difficult? Ha ha ha!

It is quirky and does have limitations. But once you learn the system booking award flights shouldn't be too difficult, albeit time consuming.

This sums it up. You have to work for it but the satisfaction and rewards are worth it. Flexibility is paramount.

Also who actually spends their QFF points on QF metal for international? Absolute last resort in my books.

 

[Guvner]

I have this weird desire to walk in to AJ's office with a fistful of points, a medium complexity multi-city biz class, non-Jetstar, international itinerary for two, ask him to book it online for me, and sit there passively watching over his shoulder enjoying the show.

If I ever get the chance I'll video it and post it here...

 

[Pleb Status]

You have to work for it but the satisfaction and rewards are worth it.

No, they really are not worth it. AFF has 'self moderated' the Qsheep to believe this however.

With SQ KF, I use less points, pay substantially less in surcharges and get far better premium cabin availability when I actually want to fly.

It took a solid week to research and book a half decent J itinerary to Europe using QFF points. The final itinerary is full of compromises (dates, locations, non direct flights etc), required ~30% more points and ~AUD750 more in surcharges. I persevered just to try to burn some QFF points prior to the September devaluation.

I could have booked a good SQ J itinerary in less than an hour (where I could fly directly in and out of PER and not via the East coast on the way back)...

 

[rock86]

No, they really are not worth it. AFF has 'self moderated' the Qsheep to believe this however.

With SQ KF, I use less points, pay substantially less in surcharges and get far better premium cabin availability when I actually want to fly.

It took a solid week to research and book a half decent J itinerary to Europe using QFF points. The final itinerary is full of compromises (dates, locations, non direct flights etc), required ~30% more points and ~AUD750 more in surcharges. I persevered just to try to burn some QFF points prior to the September devaluation.

I could have booked a good SQ J itinerary in less than an hour (where I could fly directly in and out of PER and not via the East coast on the way back)...

So anyone that thinks it is worth it is an AFF self-moderated Qsheep, okay...

Or it could be that for some non-flyers (which there's a few on AFF) is that it is so easy and very cheap to rack up QFF points, that it is certainly still worth it......baa baa

 

[Pleb Status]

So anyone that thinks it is worth it is an AFF self-moderated Qsheep, okay...

Or it could be that for some non-flyers (which there's a few on AFF) is that it is so easy and very cheap to rack up QFF points, that it is certainly still worth it......baa baa

There are normally some exceptions to every rule, but to quote... baa baa...

What is the value of something which cannot be used when you want to use it and when you can dredge something up from the depths, you could be up for more than AUD1500 in surcharges for a single J award ticket (significantly reducing any value)? Other programs can offer far better availability and value overall.

If people are paying for QFF points (through CC surcharges etc) and then redeeming for some types of Y awards, it is possible that they are actually making a loss on the transaction overall.

I thought we were the customers. If we can pick up suitable award seats, when we need them, at a competitive price and without any real effort then all is good. But why should we have to 'work at' spending more money than required at a business (and then be proud of it)..,

 

[doublecatered]

Id like to share my experiences recently with the Qantas frequent flyer process. Yes it certainly is a most frustrating experience and Ive wasted hours of time negotiating its vagaries, but im now satisfied with what I eventually ended up with.

After trawling the site trying to find 2 Business class seats to Europe for next June using QF/EK, practically going insane trying to get dates/availabilty/destinations to match up, I finally found the available flights I wanted and I proceeded to book and pay. Everything looked good and because I was using QF/EK, I was only forking out 128,000 points p/p. When I went to progress onto the payment page, I copped the dreaded error message.
I had no choice but to call. I used the call back policy and they rang back after about 3 hours as promised.
The agent was no nonsense but efficient. I gave her all the details of the flights and mentioned the error message.
She booked everything and after a few minutes on hold, she said everything was confirmed and that the points per person was going to be 170,000 !!! I was horrified as it was 40,000 per person extra !!)
I told her I had a screen shot of the previous nights booking and she did not have an answer for the discrepancy except for saying it may have been why I got the error message.
I reluctantly told her to go ahead with the booking as I had to get the flights booked once and for all.
After a few minutes on hold as she finalised the booking, she returned and told me that somehow the points required for the booking had reverted to 128,000 p/p which was music to my ears.
Not sure how/what happened there but I was super glad it did. Maybe the mention of the screen shot
helped. (I was going to write in if ended up being charged 170000 points per person!!)
And the taxes where also reduced from the initial quote as well.
Plus I was not charged a service fee for making a booking over the phone either.
It was frustrating to say the least but im happy with the outcome.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Id like to share my experiences recently with the Qantas frequent flyer process. Yes it certainly is a most frustrating experience and Ive wasted hours of time negotiating its vagaries, but im now satisfied with what I eventually ended up with.

After trawling the site trying to find 2 Business class seats to Europe for next June using QF/EK, practically going insane trying to get dates/availabilty/destinations to match up, I finally found the available flights I wanted and I proceeded to book and pay. Everything looked good and because I was using QF/EK, I was only forking out 128,000 points p/p. When I went to progress onto the payment page, I copped the dreaded error message.
I had no choice but to call. I used the call back policy and they rang back after about 3 hours as promised.
The agent was no nonsense but efficient. I gave her all the details of the flights and mentioned the error message.
She booked everything and after a few minutes on hold, she said everything was confirmed and that the points per person was going to be 170,000 !!! I was horrified as it was 40,000 per person extra !!)
I told her I had a screen shot of the previous nights booking and she did not have an answer for the discrepancy except for saying it may have been why I got the error message.
I reluctantly told her to go ahead with the booking as I had to get the flights booked once and for all.
After a few minutes on hold as she finalised the booking, she returned and told me that somehow the points required for the booking had reverted to 128,000 p/p which was music to my ears.
Not sure how/what happened there but I was super glad it did. Maybe the mention of the screen shot
helped. (I was going to write in if ended up being charged 170000 points per person!!)
And the taxes where also reduced from the initial quote as well.
Plus I was not charged a service fee for making a booking over the phone either.
It was frustrating to say the least but im happy with the outcome.

The points autoprice. So unless this was a major computer error, it was likely an error by the agent either booking you on the wrong flight (BA instead of QF, which would revert to sector pricing) or inadvertantly using the wrong dates and booking in a stopover (more thgan 24 hours). Once you have a stopover you pay sector points rather than the through fare. You would have picked this up once they sent you the ticket.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Id like to share my experiences recently with the Qantas frequent flyer process. Yes it certainly is a most frustrating experience and Ive wasted hours of time negotiating its vagaries, but im now satisfied with what I eventually ended up with.
...
It was frustrating to say the least but im happy with the outcome.

I wouldn't have described your experience as 'frustrating'. From what you have described it seems to have been close to a 'dream run' at booking an award flight!

 

[ftm]

I unknowingly ended up with 9 separate PNRs that were active for a straightforward Rome to London classic awards seat on BA this week. Each time it got to the payment page it would give an error, but in the background it was creating a PNR, just not processing payment. QF initially said it must be a problem with my card and to keep trying but after 9 failed attempts it was clear the problem wasn't with me. That's when we discovered it was making a booking each time!

After all that they wanted to charge me the $80 per person service fee to make the booking over the phone!

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

No, they really are not worth it. AFF has 'self moderated' the Qsheep to believe this however.

With SQ KF, I use less points, pay substantially less in surcharges and get far better premium cabin availability when I actually want to fly.

I acknowledge your point about KF, I myself have a balance of KF for last minute bookings, but I don't agree with the premise of this.

I prefer QF for the moment as IMHO their partner airlines have a better product to Star Alliance partners.

As an example, I just booked a trip to Europe on points for September which is fairly last minute. All it required was a cheap positioning flight to AKL on the recent sale and I picked up a classic reward on QR AKL-BCN in about 20 minutes on Q-suites with no issues including call time to QR to get the seats allocated. Taxes are approx NZD$440 one way which I think is acceptable for such a long trip in J. On the return, I'll probably do an EK ex DUS to BKK and rev back on the sale. It's all about flexibility and understanding the system.

 

[Pleb Status]

I acknowledge your point about KF, I myself have a balance of KF for last minute bookings, but I don't agree with the premise of this.

I prefer QF for the moment as IMHO their partner airlines have a better product to Star Alliance partners.

As an example, I just booked a trip to Europe on points for September which is fairly last minute. All it required was a cheap positioning flight to AKL on the recent sale and I picked up a classic reward on QR AKL-BCN in about 20 minutes on Q-suites with no issues including call time to QR to get the seats allocated. Taxes are approx NZD$440 one way which I think is acceptable for such a long trip in J. On the return, I'll probably do an EK ex DUS to BKK and rev back on the sale. It's all about flexibility and understanding the system.

This is the stuff I shake my head at...

To use your QFF points, on the outbound sector, you are going to pay for an additional Y revenue flight which will take you a minimum of three hours out of your way (to AKL). Once you take into account the extra transit in AKL and the additional flight time back over Australia, your outbound trip time is most likely to be at least six to seven hours longer than if you flew direct from say SYD. For interest, the total SQ KF surcharges for SYD-SIN-BCN in J are AUD101.69 and requires slightly less points.

On the return sector, flying EK DUS-BKK, the surcharges through QFF are EUR447 (or ~AUD721). You will then need to pay for an additional nine hour Y revenue flight to get back to Australia. The total SQ KF surcharges to get all the way back to Australia DUS-SIN-SYD in J are EUR91 (or ~AUD146). Your overall flight time will be significantly longer as well (could be >8 hours depending on connections).

So, to use your QFF points in J for a trip to Europe, you may need to spend up to AUD1000 more than on another FF program, your travel time could be up to 15 hours longer than that is required if redeeming on another FF program and up to twelve hours of the J trip will actually be in Y.

I fully 'understand the system', hence my original statements....

 

[Zanzara]

I acknowledge your point about KF, I myself have a balance of KF for last minute bookings, but I don't agree with the premise of this.

I prefer QF for the moment as IMHO their partner airlines have a better product to Star Alliance partners.

As an example, I just booked a trip to Europe on points for September which is fairly last minute. All it required was a cheap positioning flight to AKL on the recent sale and I picked up a classic reward on QR AKL-BCN in about 20 minutes on Q-suites with no issues including call time to QR to get the seats allocated. Taxes are approx NZD$440 one way which I think is acceptable for such a long trip in J. On the return, I'll probably do an EK ex DUS to BKK and rev back on the sale. It's all about flexibility and understanding the system.

This is IMHO is hilarious. Amazing how people convince themselves that they flying in completely the WRONG direction to another country, spending HOURS extra in transit and PAYING extra for the privilege is really worth it. More savvy people would spend more time in the countries they actually want to be in and and certainly spend less. Guess some just love being in the air.

I'm not scoffing at these decisions though, each to their own. It's their points at the end of the day and by flying to NZ and using rare QF FF business class inventory, it leaves increased SQ availability for me

Just my 2c, but the EK and QR business class product leave QF for dust. I can certainly understand why you would prefer using QF FF on either of those carriers.

 

[JennyMG]

I unknowingly ended up with 9 separate PNRs that were active for a straightforward Rome to London classic awards seat on BA this week. Each time it got to the payment page it would give an error, but in the background it was creating a PNR, just not processing payment. QF initially said it must be a problem with my card and to keep trying but after 9 failed attempts it was clear the problem wasn't with me. That's when we discovered it was making a booking each time!

After all that they wanted to charge me the $80 per person service fee to make the booking over the phone!

Me too, I ended up with 11 different PNRs, and errors at the same time - payment. but I think the problem was that I was booking 'into the future', PRIOR to the flight being released, and the way I did it was to use the 'flexible with dates' checkbox on the calendar, which gives you a look into the future, but SHOULDN'T let you book it unless the flights are actually released. This has given me about 2 weeks of headache, multiple phone calls, cancellations, rebookings, reallocations, finally a PNR, which then got recancelled and reissued because the partner airline 'couldn't see it', then my seat allocation disappeared.
Of course it would be MY fault. Just like it was your card's fault. ...lol.

 

[DC3]

All airlines “hoard” seats for paying pax. There is only a handful of seats released for awards on each flight.

... and sometimes, none at all in F/J on some flights.

 

[JennyMG]

LOL right?

You do understand these partner airline reward seats are those released by that airline to their flyers as well?

Your statement alsm implies that QF never releases any seats for rewards at all which is clearly untrue. Now they may not be available, or have already been snapped up by others ahead of you, but does't mean they weren't there.

oh, yes, of course I understand that, it was my simple opinion. That's all. I wasn't implying anything. I'm not sure how you get the idea that I assume QF never releases award seats. I said 'hoard' seats, in response to other people's posts who say QF seats are very very hard to get. As I've never tried, and am not likely to try, I wouldn't know. I said I wondered what % of seats were released in comparison to other airlines. Something I am also unlikely to ever find out. Not that I care. I'm happy to be flexible and fly on whatever is going my way. It was just my opinion.

 

[DC3]

... the way I did it was to use the 'flexible with dates' checkbox on the calendar, which gives you a look into the future ...

.... SHOULDN'T let you book it unless the flights are actually released ....

Yes, all dates for airline travel will be in the future.

Availability is often an issue (phantoms notwithstanding). However, not sure how you were able to book flights that are not yet released. Was this some sort of system glitch?