Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I have been building a oneworld RTW fare and am almost at the end. From reading other posts, I think that Qantas may have made a mistake with one of my flights eg allowed something through that does not meet their terms and conditions. Has anyone else had this happen and what are the consequences ie will they just cancel the flight and I lose or do they bear some liability for the error and have to fix? Because they allowed the booking, my options now to get other award seats will be limited . All advice gratefully appreciated.

QF don't "have" to fix anything and you can bet it will be your problem if the error is uncovered, which I reckon is a distinct possibility. The later in the booking process that occurs, the more disruption it could be to your travel plans. Care to tell us what you think the error is so we can comment on whether it is, in fact, an error?

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

abbijacobson, if 2 or more OW airlines fly a particular route on your itin. then obviously you could reduce costs by flying the one which charges the lowest taxes however I don't see much potential for that with your itinerary. $1400 in taxes for 2 ppl looks quite good to me for a RTW award so if you can get the routes you want I'd be content with that.

There is always some element of risk when trying to coordinate booking various flights into one award booking so I'd suggest you don't wait too long to lock in the majority of your flights, especially the ones which have low or irregular availability. If you leave it too long and you miss a key leg your whole itin. could unravel. With all these awards you need to have a Plan B contingency.

 

[adelee]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Hi all. Thanks so much for your assistance and feedback so far! Further to my last post, I've been playing around a bit with our itinerary.

I've come across a bit of a challenge - we'd either like to fly out from JNB (or CPT) - SYD, else somewhere in the US (JFK, DFW or LAX) to SYD in mid January. South America would also be on the wishlist, but from everything I can see, and what I've read, award flights from SA are pretty much nonexistant.

Probably unsurprisingly, I'm struggling to find anything. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions about more creative routing we could look at, that might open up some flights? Many thanks for the assistance.

Also, every successful itinerary I've plugged in to the search engine so far comes up at around $2100 in taxes - is this a bit steep, or is this to be expected? I've tried to avoid BA and QF where possible (though these airlines are not entirely avoidable).

 

[landl]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

They've booked us QF JFK to LA. I read somewhere that you can only fly Qantas internally in US if departing on QF and we're departing CX.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Hi all. Thanks so much for your assistance and feedback so far! Further to my last post, I've been playing around a bit with our itinerary.

I've come across a bit of a challenge - we'd either like to fly out from JNB (or CPT) - SYD, else somewhere in the US (JFK, DFW or LAX) to SYD in mid January. South America would also be on the wishlist, but from everything I can see, and what I've read, award flights from SA are pretty much nonexistant.

Probably unsurprisingly, I'm struggling to find anything. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions about more creative routing we could look at, that might open up some flights? Many thanks for the assistance.

Also, every successful itinerary I've plugged in to the search engine so far comes up at around $2100 in taxes - is this a bit steep, or is this to be expected? I've tried to avoid BA and QF where possible (though these airlines are not entirely avoidable).

Adelee, you've picked the worst time of year to be trying to fly back to SYD from the US because so many families travel then. Your best chance would be to fly to SYD via BNE. Similar problem with SA, although if mileage permits you'd probably have better luck trying to fly to SYD via HKG on CX. Having said that, I'm having trouble reconciling how you see your original itinerary and a SA diversion would tie together without blowing your mileage restrictions. I'm thinking you would be better to fly in to SA on your way from ADL to LHR rather than flying back into Aus from SA. You could fly CX from HKG to SA and then travel on to LHR from JNB (you won't get award seats from CPT - LHR because that route's popular with British tourists, but JNB - LHR is do-able; or to avoid BA to London you could fly QR via DOH). So many possible combinations so perhaps you should post your modified itin. for comments

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

They've booked us QF JFK to LA. I read somewhere that you can only fly Qantas internally in US if departing on QF and we're departing CX.

Wouldn't JFK - LAX be on a AA flight anyway so not actually a QF flight?

 

[landl]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Wouldn't JFK - LAX be on a AA flight anyway so not actually a QF flight?

Ticket says QF?

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Ticket says QF?

Yes, but it would be operated by AA so at most all that would need to be done (to avoid confusion more than anything) would be to change the flight number to whatever AA's is for that flight.

 

[ejd711]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Yes, but it would be operated by AA so at most all that would need to be done (to avoid confusion more than anything) would be to change the flight number to whatever AA's is for that flight.

I don't know the answer in this case but QF do operate a JFK-LAX (then onward flight) so landl could be right in it being a QF metal.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Ticket says QF?

What flight number? Could be a codeshare on AA in which case it's allowed. I wouldn't have though the itinerary would validate if they had that QF JFK-LAX sector in there, as you're right, you must arrive or depart on QF to USA to be eligible.

 

[adelee]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Hi. New thinking is below. I had real problems trying to tack on a NZ trip at the end of my last itinierary (seems to have been the source of the multi city search engine bugs), so have been playing around with something like this:
ADL-SYD
SYD-JNB (stopover)
(JNB-CPT at own cost)
JNB-LHR (stopover)
LHR-OSL (stopover)
OSL-MAD (stopover)
MAD-JFK (stopover)
JFK-HKG
HKG-MEL
MEL-ADL

Comes in at 32571 miles, including surface sectors. CX from HKG to SA is a good tip - will look into that. Will also try my itinerary back to front to see if it's any better for US travel (though initial searches suggest otherwise).

 

[ozflier]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

I have been building a oneworld RTW fare and am almost at the end. From reading other posts, I think that Qantas may have made a mistake with one of my flights eg allowed something through that does not meet their terms and conditions. Has anyone else had this happen and what are the consequences ie will they just cancel the flight and I lose or do they bear some liability for the error and have to fix? Because they allowed the booking, my options now to get other award seats will be limited . All advice gratefully appreciated.

Just be careful to check that the affected sector has been ticketed.

This has happened to me and that sector has continued to appear on my itinerary but later found that it had not been ticketed so that sector did not exist!

 

[landl]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

What flight number? Could be a codeshare on AA in which case it's allowed. I wouldn't have though the itinerary would validate if they had that QF JFK-LAX sector in there, as you're right, you must arrive or depart on QF to USA to be eligible.

QF18. Doesn't mention AA at all on ticket.

 

[landl]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Just be careful to check that the affected sector has been ticketed.

This has happened to me and that sector has continued to appear on my itinerary but later found that it had not been ticketed so that sector did not exist!

It's on my e-ticket ... am going to ring Qantas soon and see what they say. Will be pretty miserable if lose that and can't get AA - and cross!

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

QF18 is on QF metal (not AA) so best you find out your predicament now so you have time to (hopefully) fix it rather than be left "up cough creek without a paddle" later on. A change to an AA flight would be the best outcome but AA awards for JFK - LAX can be very hard to come-by. In the end QF's default position will be to stick to their T&Cs though.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Hi. New thinking is below. I had real problems trying to tack on a NZ trip at the end of my last itinierary (seems to have been the source of the multi city search engine bugs), so have been playing around with something like this:
ADL-SYD
SYD-JNB (stopover)
(JNB-CPT at own cost)
JNB-LHR (stopover)
LHR-OSL (stopover)
OSL-MAD (stopover)
MAD-JFK (stopover)
JFK-HKG
HKG-MEL
MEL-ADL

Comes in at 32571 miles, including surface sectors. CX from HKG to SA is a good tip - will look into that. Will also try my itinerary back to front to see if it's any better for US travel (though initial searches suggest otherwise).

Adelee, firstly you could include one leg of your JNB - CPT return in your OW ticket and it would still only count as a single stopover. Comair fly that route for BA and award seats are easy to come-by (we're doing exactly that in April on our way to Europe). That means you would only need to buy a one way ticket from JNB - CPT (Mango and Kulula both have cheap tickets) and then CPT - JNB could be included in your leg to LHR.

The rest of your itinerary looks doable except that you might find that you have trouble getting ticketed for JFK - HKG - MEL if you're intending to fly CX for both legs. Often you can find awards on both legs separately but CX blocks people from booking both together with a transit only in HKG. They do the same thing for YVR - HKG - MEL etc. No probs if you have a stopover in HKG (but of course your itin. doesn't have that option available). From memory I think there can be probs getting the flights to line up, without too long a transit in HKG, if you try to book JFK - HKG with CX and then QF to MEL.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Adelee, at the risk of confusing you, here's another possibility if you don't have a set order in which you want to go to particular cities.

SYD - JNB (Stop 1)
Buy a ticket from JNB - CPT
Fly CPT - DOH - OSL (or CPT - JNB - DOH - OSL) with QR (much better that BA and cheaper taxes) (Stop 2)
OSL - LHR (Stop 3)
London to MAD via a paid flight or high speed train (This would mean your LHR and MAD stops would count as only one stopover)
MAD - JFK (IB) (Stop 4)
JFK - HKG (Stop 5) This would allow you at least 1 day in HKG (or more if you wanted) and allow you to qualify for this leg on CX PLUS the next leg to MEL
HKG - MEL

You would be up for a paid fare from LHR - MAD but the cost would likely be less than the LHR departure tax so no net loss there.......and you free up one stopover to streamline your flights from JFK - MEL.
Win / Win.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

QF18. Doesn't mention AA at all on ticket.

You can always route JFK-DFW-LAX on AA if necessary, more miles though. You will definitely not be able to take QF18 unfortunately, it's a restricted sector as mentioned earlier.

 

[ReLoad]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

Hi all, thinking of taking SWMBO on a 420k bonanza. Given F is a bit of dying breed, if you were to choose the best flights in F on OW, what would you pic? We are thinking of 2 stops in Asia, Japan and either SIN or HKG and onto the USA, finally LHR.

How hard is it to find F awards? And where am I missing that I should include just for the F experience.

 

[vetrade]

re: "oneworld" award (140K/280K/420K) Planning - The Definitive Thread

You can always route JFK-DFW-LAX on AA if necessary, more miles though. You will definitely not be able to take QF18 unfortunately, it's a restricted sector as mentioned earlier.

Yes, there are a variety of one stop options between JFK and LAX - one downside being that they only have Y and F so if you're going for a J award those sectors would have to be in Y.