rtyuiop
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2009
- Posts
- 680
Hi folks,
So my main aim with FF points is to avoid long-haul Y for holidays... I'm starting to think about how to organise redemptions, as it seems that like QF, premium award seats to long haul destinations are in short supply. Having said that, I need some more points in the bank before I can get anywhere interesting anyway!
My experience trying to do some dummy bookings is a bit disheartening so far... I'm hoping others can chip in with tips for velocity long haul redemptions - what I've figured out so far...
It looks like awards seats open up on the website 352 days in advance or so (I haven't tried a dummy booking, so it's possible it might object), but you have to put some effort into tricking the website: the last month you can select is May 2013, but you can then shift dates using the flight selection tool - even then, 350 days out is the last you can select on the calendar, but several more days are shown in the 'ticker' style flight selection thing. Even that far out availability is spotty, but I guess that's true across the industry.
There doesn't seem to be an equivalent to the QF/OW 140k/280k pseudo-RTW, which is a real shame, given how cost effective they are! I'm open to suggestions on an equivalent...
The booking engine seems to show two different 'prices' for the inbound and outbound legs between BNE and LHR, without an obvious indication why (they're both via Abu Dhabi, both 'business) - 141800 pts + $84 outbound, and 89500 + $401 inbound... Anyone know why?
The booking engine only shows Etihad flights when LHR is the destination that I've found so far - I'm not even seeing any VA flights for the first leg! Virgin Atlantic comes up on some dates, but only with 'call for availability', which is pretty useless...
The booking engine also seems remarkably slack in terms of presenting different options for flights (e.g. I can't see options that go via SYD if I select BNE as the starting point), or letting me set up multiple stops... Anyone found a way around this apart from trying a phone booking?
I haven't been able to make SQ flights appear at all... Plus they seem to be arguably poor value according to the points table
Anyone have any tips on dealing with this? This is actually making me rethink whether I should be pumping points into velocity!
Cheers,
Danny Smith
So my main aim with FF points is to avoid long-haul Y for holidays... I'm starting to think about how to organise redemptions, as it seems that like QF, premium award seats to long haul destinations are in short supply. Having said that, I need some more points in the bank before I can get anywhere interesting anyway!
My experience trying to do some dummy bookings is a bit disheartening so far... I'm hoping others can chip in with tips for velocity long haul redemptions - what I've figured out so far...
It looks like awards seats open up on the website 352 days in advance or so (I haven't tried a dummy booking, so it's possible it might object), but you have to put some effort into tricking the website: the last month you can select is May 2013, but you can then shift dates using the flight selection tool - even then, 350 days out is the last you can select on the calendar, but several more days are shown in the 'ticker' style flight selection thing. Even that far out availability is spotty, but I guess that's true across the industry.
There doesn't seem to be an equivalent to the QF/OW 140k/280k pseudo-RTW, which is a real shame, given how cost effective they are! I'm open to suggestions on an equivalent...
The booking engine seems to show two different 'prices' for the inbound and outbound legs between BNE and LHR, without an obvious indication why (they're both via Abu Dhabi, both 'business) - 141800 pts + $84 outbound, and 89500 + $401 inbound... Anyone know why?
The booking engine only shows Etihad flights when LHR is the destination that I've found so far - I'm not even seeing any VA flights for the first leg! Virgin Atlantic comes up on some dates, but only with 'call for availability', which is pretty useless...
The booking engine also seems remarkably slack in terms of presenting different options for flights (e.g. I can't see options that go via SYD if I select BNE as the starting point), or letting me set up multiple stops... Anyone found a way around this apart from trying a phone booking?
I haven't been able to make SQ flights appear at all... Plus they seem to be arguably poor value according to the points table
Anyone have any tips on dealing with this? This is actually making me rethink whether I should be pumping points into velocity!
Cheers,
Danny Smith
