Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Warren Mason]

You will need to collect and recheck. ADL is not a 24 hour airport.

Thanks. That works perfectly for me. It's going to be a long trip and some access to our bags will make life a bit easier.

 

[flapper]

To prove it really does matter who you get on the phone:

I tried to call Qantas but there was huge wait times. I requested a call back. Meanwhile I tried the SMS serivce. The SMS customer service rep was able to find the flights I wanted to add to my itinerary very quickly. As they were doing that I got the call back and the person on the phone couldn't find the exact same flights. I even looked them up whilst she was on the phone and could see them myself (which I let her know). I also asked her to simply read back to me the flights that I already had on my booking and she kept missing flights.

Hang up and call back is a hard pill to swallow when you've been on hold for over and hour or waiting for a call back for over 3 hours but it's worth it in the long run.

From my recent experience the SMS service is superior to the SA call centre. Last weekend I wanted to add a QR flight to my OWA 361 days out. Call centre insisted flights can only be booked 353 days out. I wanted to speak to Australian call centre but she claimed they were closed. I asked to speak to her supervisor but she just repeated flights can only be booked 353 days out. But I can book it online right now I insisted and did it just last month. Finally she looked up another system and claimed 2 J seats just became available. After all that she wanted to charge a 8,000 pt service fee on top of the 5,000 pt change fee.
Why do the agents lack such basic knowledge?
I found the SMS add the flights with little fuss. Although they still wanted to charge a 8,000 pt service fee for a J booking. How many people get charged this “in error”?

 

[jfl]

So I'm trying to get availability on SYD-JNB J for mid-April next year, which I will most likely not be able to get.

I do, however, have a friend with QFF Platinum. Would they be able to request two seats for me to add to my OW classic award? Or will this not work?

 

[cjd600]

So I'm trying to get availability on SYD-JNB J for mid-April next year, which I will most likely not be able to get.

I do, however, have a friend with QFF Platinum. Would they be able to request two seats for me to add to my OW classic award? Or will this not work?

No, I dont believe so

 

[jfl]

No, I dont believe so

Thanks, was worth a try!

 

[cjd600]

Thanks, was worth a try!

I wish it was possible!

 

[daniella39]

Refining my itinerary at the moment and have plenty of flex in dates... have locked in first flights as we are Jan departure.
MEL-SIN -land segment- HKG-LHR -land segment- MAD-EZE, EZE-DFW (transit)-CUN-LAX-MEL

Stops are Singapore, London, Buenos Aires, Cancun, LA.

I'm getting errors on the multi-trip planner so wondering if anyone can see any reasons for this.
Appreciate any input, or the reassurance that others also get errors when there may not be any.

 

[Kiwifruit]

Refining my itinerary at the moment and have plenty of flex in dates... have locked in first flights as we are Jan departure.
MEL-SIN -land segment- HKG-LHR -land segment- MAD-EZE, EZE-DFW (transit)-CUN-LAX-MEL

Stops are Singapore, London, Buenos Aires, Cancun, LA.

I'm getting errors on the multi-trip planner so wondering if anyone can see any reasons for this.
Appreciate any input, or the reassurance that others also get errors when there may not be any.

Your itinerary looks good to me (provided you haven't exceeded the maximum mileage of 35,000 which I haven't checked).

I too find the multi-trip planner to be totally unreliable once you have four or more sectors so my advice is to hold in what you can and then call to add the other sectors. Apparently you can also use SMS to communicate and make changes but have no personal experience on this.

Nice itinerary by the way. I spent almost a month in Buenos Airies in February and loved it.

 

[melbkate]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

 

[appaz]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

I did
PER-DOH-AMM-ATH // JTR-HEL // ARN-DOH-KUL - trip 1
KUL-HKG-YVR-HKG-PER - trip 2

Europe and Canada, 2 trips 9 months apart. Just had to pay for KUL-PER-KUL (cheap Y) as well as ATH-JTR & HEL-ARN

Will likely book another award next year, definitely going to do 2 trips again

 

[melbkate]

I did
PER-DOH-AMM-ATH // JTR-HEL // ARN-KUL - trip 1
KUL-HKG-YVR-HKG-PER - trip 2

Europe and Canada, 2 trips 9 months apart. Just had to pay for KUL-PER-KUL (cheap Y) as well as ATH-JTR & HEL-ARN

Will likely book another award next year, definitely going to do 2 trips again

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab.

I read elsewhere to start and end your OWR in an Asian hub was for some reason cheaper.

Kate

 

[appaz]

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab. Kate

No worries, I forgot DOH on the return from Europe, updated my post.

Essentially for Europe + NA, you need Eastern Europe and the West Coast of NA to make it work.

I'm looking at including NYC in my next one, but that limits me to the Middle East or Asia for the 2nd trip

 

[Kangol]

A very basic example would be:
NRT-HKG-LHR-SYD,
SYD-LAX-NRT. Of course you could have other smaller side trips in Europe, Asia and North America, mileage permitting.

Buy a separate positioning flight to Tokyo to start your first trip and use the return to come home at the end of your second trip.

Or start it out of HKG instead of NRT and position to/from there. You would need to have two oneworld airlines - CX, BA, IB, AA would be the likely options. JL if you also wanted to visit Japan.

 

[jeza]

Hi all

I have read on this forum about buying one Asia fare in order to turn your OWR into two trips.

Would someone kindly give me an example of an itinerary maximising the 280k J into 2 trips?

We are ex MEL travelling only to France/Italy/Spain via SIN or NRT or HKG most likely

Thanks

Hi @melbkate I'm in the process of booking OWA for 2 trips to Europe and am starting in Singapore.

Currently have SIN-HEL, HEL-TXL, AMS-xDOH-PER booked for July/August of this year & PER-HKG, HKG-BCN booked for May 2020. Just waiting now for flights to be released to get back to Singapore for mid June 2020, hoping to nab CDG-xDOH-SIN.

 

[melbkate]

Hi @melbkate I'm in the process of booking OWA for 2 trips to Europe and am starting in Singapore.

Currently have SIN-HEL, HEL-TXL, AMS-xDOH-PER booked for July/August of this year & PER-HKG, HKG-BCN booked for May 2020. Just waiting now for flights to be released to get back to Singapore for mid June 2020, hoping to nab CDG-xDOH-SIN.

That sounds great! I've done 2 OWR in J and it took months. I imagine this will take even more but ostensibly worth it. Say you get back to Perth in May and decide to change a date for 2020 is it possible? I think it is, just seems like a long time between flights which makes me a little nervous.

 

[melbkate]

No worries, I forgot DOH on the return from Europe, updated my post.

Essentially for Europe + NA, you need Eastern Europe and the West Coast of NA to make it work.

I'm looking at including NYC in my next one, but that limits me to the Middle East or Asia for the 2nd trip

I'm actually not sure what you mean. I take it NA is North America and as I only want to go to Western Europe are you saying it is not worth it? Or not workable? Is it the 3 continent rule?

 

[melbkate]

A very basic example would be:
NRT-HKG-LHR-SYD,
SYD-LAX-NRT. Of course you could have other smaller side trips in Europe, Asia and North America, mileage permitting.

Buy a separate positioning flight to Tokyo to start your first trip and use the return to come home at the end of your second trip.

Or start it out of HKG instead of NRT and position to/from there. You would need to have two oneworld airlines - CX, BA, IB, AA would be the likely options. JL if you also wanted to visit Japan.

Thanks kangol. Do you know or anyone know, if there is any benefit in having your long 'stopover' ie the 10 months or whatever, in your home city (like you suggested) or in an Asian hub like appaz's booking above in KUL

 

[exceladdict]

I'll take a shot at these:

That sounds great! I've done 2 OWR in J and it took months. I imagine this will take even more but ostensibly worth it. Say you get back to Perth in May and decide to change a date for 2020 is it possible? I think it is, just seems like a long time between flights which makes me a little nervous.

Yes, but:
1) I think there's a 365 day limit between your first and last flight on an itinerary i.e. it can't span more than a year.
2) You can only book flights so many days out, which can make booking over such a long timeframe difficult. It either means paying a lot of change fees as you book it progressively over the course of a year, or, booking it without such a long horizon, which can mean availability issues. For example if you wanted your itinerary to end in September next year, the latest it can start is September this year, the availability for which will be low because it's only 3 months away.
3) You can change anything prior to departure (on the first flight) by paying a change fee but after you depart it is much more restrictive. I believe you can only change flight dates - for example, if you have a CX flight HKG to PER, you can shift the date (if there's availability) but not the carrier, or add a stopover to HKG-SIN-PER, etc.

I'm actually not sure what you mean. I take it NA is North America and as I only want to go to Western Europe are you saying it is not worth it? Or not workable? Is it the 3 continent rule?

I think What @appaz getting at is that you will run up against mileage limits if you try otherwise. Going all the way to western europe (LHR) and east coast USA (NYC) (or Southern US such as Texas for that matter) adds on extra miles that get you close to the 35k limit. You might be better off saving the miles for premium travel on your longer legs and paying cash for a fare for example from LAX or SEA to your East Coast USA destinations.

Interestingly being based in Perth, this makes flights into SYD, MEL and BNE harder to justify for me, as adding on the few thousand miles transcon to PER takes quite a chunk out of the 35k allowance. For me it might be better having a stopover in DPS and booking a cheap one way from there.

To clarify, there is no continent rule on a OWR.

Thanks kangol. Do you know or anyone know, if there is any benefit in having your long 'stopover' ie the 10 months or whatever, in your home city (like you suggested) or in an Asian hub like appaz's booking above in KUL

If you do it in your home city, you don't need to pay to book to get home in between. You can also save mileage for your longer legs. However, being from MEL (I assume), this isn't quite as short as it would be for me to pop to DPS, SIN or KUL. You could consider AKL as an interim point. Just keep in mind that you can't return to the city or country where your itinerary started until the end of your award.

 

[exceladdict]

Thanks so much appaz, for some reason I find it hard to fathom. If anyone else has any other examples that would be fab.

I read elsewhere to start and end your OWR in an Asian hub was for some reason cheaper.

Kate

Missed this one sorry. In my research, it is typically always cheaper to start outside Australia, Manila is the ideal location due to particular regulations reducing surcharges on itineraries commencing in the Philippines.

 

[melbkate]

Missed this one sorry. In my research, it is typically always cheaper to start outside Australia, Manila is the ideal location due to particular regulations reducing surcharges on itineraries commencing in the Philippines.

Thanks so much kangol Just mustering up the energy to start another spreadsheet! Hmm, Manilla and Auckland food for thought thanks I need to jump on a milage calculator