Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Mr H]

That's not how I read the post. There's nothing about the structuring of commercial fares/tickets in smart ways that is easy or accessible.

I was going off the phrases: "by being smart", "as a very simple example" and "that's an easy approx 10% saving".

 

[yaksha98]

Sounds like its something to do with this....

https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnect/au/en/policy-and-guidelines/ticket-taxes-fees-and-charges/goods-and-services-tax-application.html

GST and international travel

Explains the circumstances where international travel and tourism-related activities are taxable or GST-free.

www.ato.gov.au

 

[levelnine]

I was going off the phrases: "by being smart", "as a very simple example" and "that's an easy approx 10% saving".

None of that implies it is easy to do or you are a fool for not doing so, just that there are tricks of the trade that travel agents can occasionally exploit. And madrooster gave some simple examples to show how that works.

The problem with using travel agents is they have to be paid for their time and expertise (quite rightly, of course — no one should work for free). Once you add those fees, many of these hacks become little better than the ones everyone has access to.

So yes madrooster can book a PER-SYD fare for $25 in J, but add an agent fee of $50-100 to that ticket and all of a sudden I'm coming out ahead using BA Avios.

 

[madrooster]

I presume this is all about adding domestic flights to an international revenue booking - possibly with long stopovers.

Correct and in some cases it's not just domestics you can add. For example BA fares ex-AU allow routings such as:

MEL-PER
stopover
PER-SYD
stopover
SYD-LHR-EU
EU-LHR-SYD
stopover
SYD-NOU
stopover
NOU-BNE

The MEL-PER and PER-SYD are approx 25 AUD each. The SYD-NOU and NOU-BNE are approx 200 AUD combined. If you're a BA gold/gold guest list and have gold upgrade vouchers you can then apply those as well, and still add the PER/NOU segments in.

There's many other examples ex-foreign ports and ex-AU where this sort of concept is allowed and the majority if not nearly all cannot be constructed online. Realistically many airline contact centres would struggle with these.

There are plenty of fares out there where if you just look at say SYD-LAX, the fare is boring. There's not much fun to be had... until you look further afield at what you can actually construct out of it.

Even QF offer some quite funky routings that you can't do online, for example this effectively gives you a circle Indian Ocean trip.

MEL-SYD
SYD-JNB
CPT-LHR
MAD-DXB
DXB-SIN
HND-SYD
SYD-MEL

QF also offer fares that allow you to effectively build a RTW:

SYD-HND
SIN-DXB-CDG
ARN-LHR-YUL
YYZ-LGA
JFK-LAX
LAX-SYD

That's just the tip of the iceberg... many airlines offer fares that can allow you to do crazy itineraries.

It's disappointing. This isn't FlyerTalk.

I don't know why he's being so secret squirrel about all this.

What is the point in me typing up a long post on how to do it when the majority will struggle to do it, then ask a load of questions or post that they're struggling to achieve it? I previously tried that and found it ended up being a waste of time due to the fact most people couldn't achieve what I posted. I don't have the free time to then have to answer all those questions since I let the horse bolt out of the gate. If you're willing to pay for me to dedicate time to answering such questions, then sure, I'd be happy to do so.

There are various reasons where I am selective about what I will share publicly - I know for fact that airline staff read AFF, Point Hacks and others. In fact AFF has featured in some trade-only documents that some airlines have sent out to the trade.

Drawing attention to loopholes, too good to be true fares (the recent NH Vietnam debacle anyone?), fares that allow things that they probably shouldn't, etc., is a sure fire way to ruin it for everyone.

As an example of this, QR had a stuff up in their ADL-NZ fares that lasted from Feb 2022 until about Aug 2022. $3.3k AUD for ADL-DOH, DOH-SYD/MEL, SYD/MEL-NZ, NZ-SYD/MEL, MEL/SYD-DOH, DOH-ADL in J. That's 4 long hauls on QR and two trans tasman on QF.

Stopovers were permitted at SYD/MEL and at DOH so if you were smart about how you constructed the fare, you could construct a US or EU trip using the DOH stopover. Effectively you could build two trips to the US or EU (or even both) for ballpark $3-4k AUD, in J for each "trip". This concept is not new and is akin to members here starting their QF oneworld award from Asia or NZ and making multiple trips out of it.

This fare didn't make it to social media and was barely mentioned here on AFF (serfty if I recall correctly did hint at it in his own posts), which is why it lasted so long.

I believe I am already fairly generous with the amount of info I've given out publicly via AFF over the years both in posts and via the podcasts. I don't get paid for it either - AFF does not pay me a single cent to be interviewed for AFF podcasts.

Occasionally I'll fix stuff ups for AFF members at no charge if it's simple and for fee if it's a major issue.

It is a pattern we have seen before.

It goes:

A: makes a statement that sounds intriguing
B: tell me more
A: it is really very simple and works
B: so why not tell us how it works?
A: you wouldn't understand if I told you
B: well why not try us?
A: you really wouldn't understand
B: we might...
A: well since you insist, here is an unedited chuck of a rulebook - see you can't understand it, can you?
B: whatever.

That kind of attitude displayed around AFF in general is exactly the reason why I don't bother to tell more.

The fact that I highlight that people can do such concepts is already a starting point and is intentional to draw some awareness that such a concept is possible. Many concepts are just not fit for public consumption in the first place.

I could choose to not post about such concepts in the first place and you'd be none the wiser - but who loses? You as an AFF member and certainly it's not me.

At least you then know such a concept exists... you can research the concept yourself, ask your agent if you have one that you work with or privately message me if you want to know more. I receive private messages with more detailed or specific scenario questions all the time, so clearly it works.

Presumably for two reasons:
1. It is difficult, if not impossible, to do without a travel agent.
2. madrooster is a travel agent, so hinting at travel agent exclusives does ultimately help drive business.

Completely fine in my books. If 1 is not true and anyone can do it, revealing it to the public is a surefire way to have it shut down. There's plenty of exploits out there that remain exploits precisely because they don't become public knowledge.

You're very much correct about #1.

Anything oddball or out of the ordinary is beyond the understanding of virtually all airline contact centre agents. I would go as far as saying that most of the regular AFF members here would know more than most airline contact centre agents.

I regularly find airline contact centre agents struggle beyond about 4-6 flights or so. Anything beyond that is just beyond their comprehension and they put you on hold for ages to try and figure it out, if they can even figure it out. This has only become worse since COVID-19 as a lot of working knowledge was let go during the pandemic.

Another example would be airline contact centre agents wouldn't have a clue how to do a tax exemption let alone the applicability of such exemptions. There is a very long list of taxes that can exempted in certain scenarios - a travel agent worth their gold would know how to apply these and when to apply these.

Then there's the vast majority of travel agents out there who can do an A-B-C-A itinerary and that's about as much as they can do. That's better than the majority of airline contact centre agents, but they'd still struggle or downright say no to any of the advanced concepts that I have alluded to here on AFF.

I am very mindful of whether posting a concept publicly gives any real benefit to AFF members, contrasted with whether it's going to result in something being restricted or shutdown. As I mentioned above, I know for fact that airline staff read AFF and that means we need to be careful.

With regards to #2, I personally don't care about whether it drives business or not. I am slammed as it is and this is the reason behind why I have not given my contact details in the more recent AFF podcasts where I've been interviewed by Matt Graham.

Yet they were presented as easy things to do and there was almost a tone that I and others must be fools for not doing it ourselves.

No one said you're a fool for not doing it - that's an assumption you are making.

For those who want to do it, well now you know such a concept exists and I do answer members privately who understand some things are better taken offline. Might I suggest that you consider familiarising yourself with such an idea.

As I said above, I could stop posting anything along those lines and just go back to answering the odd question here and there...

That's not how I read the post. There's nothing about the structuring of commercial fares/tickets in smart ways that is easy or accessible.

None of that implies it is easy to do or you are a fool for not doing so, just that there are tricks of the trade that travel agents can occasionally exploit. And madrooster gave some simple examples to show how that works.

The problem with using travel agents is they have to be paid for their time and expertise (quite rightly, of course — no one should work for free). Once you add those fees, many of these hacks become little better than the ones everyone has access to.

So yes madrooster can book a PER-SYD fare for $25 in J, but add an agent fee of $50-100 to that ticket and all of a sudden I'm coming out ahead using BA Avios.

The examples I've given so far are just the tip of the iceberg...

Well versed/experienced agents can do wonders for you and it's not just tricks of the trade... it goes much deeper than that and it is often about the relationship that you have with your agent.

Looking at the cost of what a SYD-PER in J might be at $25, plus a fee, may sound "expensive" compared to an avios redemption, but that fee would not have just been about the SYD-PER. That fee you pay might have meant you benefited from one or multiple of the below and the SYD-PER for $25 in J might have only been one of many benefits.

Say for example you came to me and said you're based in SYD and need to go to PER to see your mother and a month later you're going to the US in J for a conference. On your own you might've booked a SYD-PER-SYD return commercial fare in Y, or booked a return with avios in Y or J and then booked a SYD-US commercial fare for the conference as that's reasonably doable online on your own.

Whereas I would've looked at it and thought no, do an avios ticket for SYD-PER, then start your US conference ticket from PER, and do PER-SYD stopover, SYD-US etc. with a SYD-PER at the end so you can go and see your mother again. You've just saved 11k avios if it's Y or 38750 avios if it's J plus 17.50 AUD as you don't pay a fuel surcharge on commercial QF domestic for the first visit to your mother and I would've set you up for a second visit. You might also find yourself in row 11 on the QF A380 or you might earn some extra SCs for the trip too.

To give you a view of the types of things I do for pax:

1. Automatic tax exemptions - if there's a tax saving to be had, I proactively apply it.

2. Fare savings - if making small alterations to an itinerary or changing the approach to the itinerary yields fare savings, I proctively suggest them and this includes using international fares to obtain cheap regional or domestic flying. In some cases I save people thousands of $.

3. Multiple separate commercial tickets - I construct itineraries consisting of multiple tickets. I very frequently ticket pax on AU-Asia, Asia-EU/US type itineraries on one PNR so that they are seamlessly through checked.

4. Mixing awards and commercial tickets - if a certain itinerary is better ticketed as an award, I create and ticket the award booking. If the itinerary that someone wants to do as an award is better done as a commercial ticket then I suggest that accordingly. If it's better as a mixed itinerary of both award and commercial... then I create and ticket both the award and commercial parts together so that pax have a seamless through-check journey across separate tickets. AU-CGK and then CGK-US/EU is a great example of this - pax find my fees worth paying to avoid the faffing about with Indonesia visas and the need to overnight on separate PNRs. This also holds true for other ports like CMB, SGN, HAN just to name a few.

5. Awards in general - I've done numerous awards for pax, even oneworld awards, 10+ segment AA awards and so on. I manage it end to end too - including sorting out ugly schedule changes. A recent example of an ugly schedule change is this: Partner Airline Award Ticket Schedule Changes: Always Frustrating ... if it were a booking that I setup, it would've taken me 10 mins to fix and they'd have stayed in QF F.

I can also often see availability that you can't see online - that is, it's actually there but a website doesn't show it as an option. As an example, a certain AFF member (you know who you are!) came to me with their 318k award and they had a gap in their itinerary where they thought they'd have to pay for a commercial fare to bridge the gap. I basically gutted the entire itinerary except for 1 flight and rebuilt the itinerary, bridged the gap and it even resulted in a few hundred dollars in fuel fines being refunded. They even got a extra separate domestic return trip as part of the 318k award for basically nothing.

I've dealt with countless cases of QF charging incorrect fuel surcharges/taxes too... again worth hundreds of dollars. The general public wouldn't know how to confirm correct fuel surcharges/taxes and also be able to back that up and prove it to the airline why it's wrong. Before you say Matrix ITA... no matrix ITA does not correctly calculate what award fuel surcharges/taxes should be.

6. Status runs - if you need a big status run... then I definitely build effectively status runs. Often much better than what you can do online.

7. Better seating - as an example QF elites no longer receive free MCE. My pax do - automatically.

8. Opening up inventory - there's loads of scenarios out there where automated revenue management systems don't make sensible decisions and therefore restricts inventory. In such cases I often get inventory opened up by the airline where it is sensible to do so. This can often save hundreds or even thousands of $ too and this isn't just about commercial inventory either...

9. Breaking fare rules - there's plenty of scenarios where an itinerary is largely practical bar one or two small rules in a fare. Agents can ask for airline approval to break fare rules in the right circumstances to give you a more desirable outcome. This can often save hundreds or even thousands of $ too.

10. Multiple passports - a pax with multiple passports? No problem. This is particularly important for travel to/from CA/US and from next year, UK and EU too.

11. Multiple FF numbers - a pax could hold status with more than one airline and want to credit flights respectively. For example:

MEL-SYD - credit to QF
SYD-LAX - credit to BA
LAX-MCO - credit to AA

Online you can generally only put in 1 FF number at a time and it means you need to keep swapping FF numbers, risking a flight crediting to the wrong program. This is easy to do for agents. Agents can put in your desired FF number against each flight so that you don't have to worry about messing with FF numbers online. Multiple AFF members have gone from being just QF platinums, to QF P1 with my assistance. Some have gone from QF platinum to being double emerald (QF platinum + BA gold for example).

There's much more... I could go on for ages but I digress...

 

[flapper]

Looks like an awesome trip. Can you share how much taxes were?

Also I will be (sadly) cancelling a J reward MEL-LAX flight (QF93) on the 8th of May which was booked as part of a OWCA. If anyone is interested in it let me know and I'll PM you when it's cancelled.

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

 

[SydneySwan]

Great post @madrooster - I learnt a lot.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Great post @madrooster - I learnt a lot.

Contender for post of the year and it’s only April.

 

[Danger]

We're well off topic and I think we should start a new thread ( <redacted> ).

What is the point in me typing up a long post on how to do it when the majority will struggle to do it, then ask a load of questions or post that they're struggling to achieve it?

So why post it to begin with? Why do the equivalent of telling everyone you have a secret, <redacted>?

There are various reasons where I am selective about what I will share publicly - I know for fact that airline staff read AFF, Point Hacks and others. In fact AFF has featured in some trade-only documents that some airlines have sent out to the trade.

I'd love to see some of these references. I think they'd be quite interesting.<redacted>

Drawing attention to loopholes, too good to be true fares (the recent NH Vietnam debacle anyone?), fares that allow things that they probably shouldn't, etc., is a sure fire way to ruin it for everyone.

As an example of this, QR had a stuff up in their ADL-NZ fares that lasted from Feb 2022 until about Aug 2022. $3.3k AUD for ADL-DOH, DOH-SYD/MEL, SYD/MEL-NZ, NZ-SYD/MEL, MEL/SYD-DOH, DOH-ADL in J. That's 4 long hauls on QR and two trans tasman on QF.

What's the value in this post now to anyone but you?

I don't see either of you stepping up to the plate to offer anything close out of your own generosity out of your own free time. When you do, you're welcome to grizzle about it.

I'm borderline offended, but fortunately <redacted>.

In the past several months I doubt you'd find another member who's contributed more advice and guidance to this thread than Mr H. I'm no TA so I don't have all the bells and whistles and the secret passwords to fly high above everyone else. What I don't believe I've ever done - nor will do - is throw some enticing crumbs and call it a day.

As I said above, I could stop posting anything along those lines and just go back to answering the odd question here and there...

I don't believe anyone's suggesting that. I appreciate your contribution over many years and I admire your knowledge. What I personally don't appreciate is the opaque information. Perhaps if it was something like, 'I'm aware of a trick to do x; PM if you'd like some help,' then I for one could probably live with it (assuming there was no charge for it).

To give you a view of the types of things I do for pax:

...

There's much more... I could go on for ages but I digress...

Who needs ads in the daily newspaper when you've got AFF? <redacted>

I'll finish by reiterating that I very much appreciate your contribution and hope you continue to do so, but perhaps (at least from my perspective) a little differently at some points. No doubt I've burnt any bridge I may have had with you and that's certainly my loss and not yours. But I think there's too much here to ignore.

 

[Phoenix-1]

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

In my experience they have gone back in, but not everyone finds the same. When I've cancelled on the phone and requested an immediate points refund (to redo an itinerary) they've appeared immediately.

In the past several months I doubt you'd find another member who's contributed more advice and guidance to this thread than Mr H. I'm no TA so I don't have all the bells and whistles and the secret passwords to fly high above everyone else. What I don't believe I've ever done - nor will do - is throw some enticing crumbs and call it a day.

Have to agree with this. Mr. H has helped many people on this forum.

 

[serfty]

So if you cancel a rewards booking with QF flights, the flights go back into inventory. Any idea how long that takes?

Sometime they go back in to award inventory, sometimes they don't. It really depends on whether the Qantas yield management 'bot decides how the now available seats could be best sold.

This depends on various factors such as how many seats have now been sold and how many actual awards have been claimed for the segment.

In a general sense, the less time it is before the scheduled flight, the less likely such seats are to go back into award inventory.

In my experience they have gone back in, but not everyone finds the same. When I've cancelled on the phone and requested an immediate points refund (to redo an itinerary) they've appeared immediately.

When they do it over the 'phone a good agent will normally 'hold' the award seat(s) within the booking, not letting them go back into the grasp of Yield Management.

 

[zoom&boom]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

 

[Captain Halliday]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

Most likely, yes.

If you want travel from SYD to LHR... you need to search SYD-LHR.

 

[zoom&boom]

Most likely, yes.

If you want travel from SYD to LHR... you need to search SYD-LHR.

Thought as much. Back to the drawing board for me....Thanks for the quick response.

 

[Steph123]

Still trying to wrap my head around Married Sector Logic......

Trying to nut out the first sector of a possible OWCR and am seeing...
Day 1 SYD-HND and Day 2 HND-LHR with the time between flights of less than 24hrs.
If I search SYD-LHR there are two flights available but not the ones I see on the initial seperate searches.

Does this mean that my initial search would not be able to be booked and only the SYD-LHR sectors could be?

If you can see SYD-HND and then HND-LHR there's no reason you can't book these two flights for your OWA booking. If there's less than 24hrs in between it will count as a transit in Tokyo.

I'd also be cautious about how long you have in between as you don't want to run into any issues with delays on your first flight causing you to miss your second.

But otherwise this is basically how I pieced together my OWA booking.

I was under the impression it's the opposite problem for married sectors. Ie if you can see SYD-HND-LHR but not SYD-HND or HND-LHR by themselves.

 

[levelnine]

Thought as much. Back to the drawing board for me....Thanks for the quick response.

I was under the impression it's the opposite problem for married sectors. Ie if you can see SYD-HND-LHR but not SYD-HND or HND-LHR by themselves.

It can be both.

zoom&boom, if you can book SYD-HND + HND-LHR online, it will be fine.

However, if you need to book it over the phone for any reason (eg you're adding SYD-HND-LHR to an existing booking), you will likely get an agent saying they cannot see the flights, giving you some reason like they are only for new flight bookings. Even Hobart agents have given me the 'married segment' line in these circumstances.

 

[zoom&boom]

Ah Ha. Thanks for all the responses. I didn’t want to book the individual sectors and then find out down the track that it would violate some obscure rule and not stop at 318K points when additional sectors were added.

If this can be booked then adding more European side trips should be relatively easy (what am I saying )

I accept the challenge of booking the return from Europe with new found optimism.

Thanks Team

 

[bigpete]

If this can be booked then adding more European side trips should be relatively easy (what am I saying )

You could save an OWA stopover by doing an open jaw in Europe and side-tripping via rail, Easyjet or Ryanair

 

[soarer]

I agree with this, I had an issue with a cancelled UL flight in a OWCA (see previous post). I emailed the new escalation team and also called qantas few times over the last 8 days nothing happened. Yesterday I sent a message via twitter and few hours later I was booked on the replacement UL flight (in J) and e-ticket generated for 3 pax. Everything is showing ok on CMT. Hope this will help others in a similar situation.

That's comforting to know. Has anyone tried the Twitter channel successfully for something like replacing 4 existing flights with 2 new ones in a 8 flight OWA booking?

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

That's comforting to know. Has anyone tried the Twitter channel successfully for something like replacing 4 existing flights with 2 new ones in a 8 flight OWA booking?

I haven’t tried the Twitter channel, but on a sample size of one today, I rang the regular plebeian 131313 number to replace 2 existing flights with 1 new one in a 4 flight OWCA itinerary (so exactly half of yours…).
The call was answered within a couple of minutes.
I think it was Fiji.
The csa was pleasant and helpful, but seemed to take a while to complete each step.
The call took about 40 minutes all up. At the end she said, completely unprompted, “I‘ve sent the itinerary off to get re-ticketed - this has got CX flights in it and they can get cancelled quickly if it’s not done soon”.
New tickets arrived about 2 hours later.

Its sad to think that the when the system has just worked in the way that it always should, that we’re here opening up the ‘good’ red wine to celebrate our good fortune…

 

[soarer]

Hello all. I had a great trip booked in J for 2023 MEL-DOH-FCO then CDG-HEL then HEL-NRT-MEL. After QR segments droped off I spent hours and hours trying to reinstate the seats I gave up and changed trip to Japan only.

Interesting that I only got my points refund 292k and $1000 CC credit after posting on Twitter as my last resort when I was told I wasn't due anything by call centre in Fiji.

Anyway I am back trying to book a Europe trip for 2024 and preparing by doing some dummy bookings and searches and I have questions.

First thing I noticed was Finnair seats HEL-NRT do not come up ever. All their European reward seats show up on BA site not HEL-NRT
Have Finnair changed their availabilties?

Secondly, I have been looking at QR in that case to get to Europe and return home. Qantas site does not show QR availability at all but seats show up on BA so that is where I am looking.

However BA has 354 days our limit to their search. QR has 361. So there would be seats on QR free but the BA site cannot show. Is there a better site to look for QR seats?

Finally once I find QR seats do I then have to call Qantas to make the booking?

Hope someone can assist.

Good to know there are successfully completed trips.