Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[celph]

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

Congrats.

1. Yes.
2. Can't book Qatar J online with Qantas. You need to ring up.

Thanks for that, so the J availability on the BA website is correct I assume?

 

[vetrade]

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

Thanks for that, so the J availability on the BA website is correct I assume?

Yes, very likely it is correct. The QF operator will be able to confirm the QR availability, and, since you can't book it online, ask for the online booking fee to be waived - high likelihood they will agree to it for you.

 

[madrooster]

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

Fra>Doh>Jnb. The Doh>Jnb flight has a later arrival and now doesn't arrive with enough time for my next flight on BA Jnb>Liv (separate ticket).

You'll need to depart FRA earlier most likely... is there award availability?

 

[hutch]

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

It finally got fixed on Wednesday thanks to a pleasant QF staff member.
Moved me to a flight the day earlier... there was U availability between FRA-DOH, but not DOH-JNB, but they still moved me. I assumed they called Qatar and arranged this.

 

[madrooster]

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

It finally got fixed on Wednesday thanks to a pleasant QF staff member.
Moved me to a flight the day earlier... there was U availability between FRA-DOH, but not DOH-JNB, but they still moved me. I assumed they called Qatar and arranged this.

I'm curious if they rebooked you into a revenue class - check your booking. QR gave me authorisation to reissue a 280k award into C class due to a MCT violation caused by them. That means I'll now earn SC's and points.

 

[hutch]

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

Yep. It is down as a J booking fare. Everything else U. So did think it might get pts/status.
If I get pts/status it'll be a little bonus... but not worried either way

 

[yoyo]

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

My husband will be taking sabbatical in Feb 2017 so we are getting close to the time for me to start booking our 280k business class OW award tickets. Looking for assistance, tips and suggestions please. We will actually be spending time in Tel Aviv and London but Tel Aviv is hard to get to using one world- that's why I thought we'd stop in Spain. I thought I would buy my own tickets in and out of London to save on extortionate surcharges. Here are the planned stops:
1. MEL-BCN (or somewhere in Spain)
2. LIS-TLV
3. TXL-JFK
4. JFK-YVR
5. YVR-MEL

Is it ok to have that many open jaws? Can we add another flight in there? What airlines can get us to Spain we prefer not to use Qatar if possible. Should I be signing up for expert flyer/award nexus/kvs to help me find availability? It looks like all the flights are fairly bookable except for YVR-MEL which looks like a nightmare, we are happy to do Cathay via HKG on the way home if that doesn't put us over the 35,000 limit.

 

[madrooster]

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

My husband will be taking sabbatical in Feb 2017 so we are getting close to the time for me to start booking our 280k business class OW award tickets. Looking for assistance, tips and suggestions please. We will actually be spending time in Tel Aviv and London but Tel Aviv is hard to get to using one world- that's why I thought we'd stop in Spain. I thought I would buy my own tickets in and out of London to save on extortionate surcharges. Here are the planned stops:
1. MEL-BCN (or somewhere in Spain)
2. LIS-TLV
3. TXL-JFK
4. JFK-YVR
5. YVR-MEL

Is it ok to have that many open jaws? Can we add another flight in there? What airlines can get us to Spain we prefer not to use Qatar if possible. Should I be signing up for expert flyer/award nexus/kvs to help me find availability? It looks like all the flights are fairly bookable except for YVR-MEL which looks like a nightmare, we are happy to do Cathay via HKG on the way home if that doesn't put us over the 35,000 limit.

MEL-DOH-BCN is possible on QR/QR
MEL-HKG-MAD-BCN is possible on CX/IB (recommended route to save on YQ, otherwise QR/QR above)
MEL-SIN-LHR-BCN is possible on QF/BA/IB
MEL-DXB-LHR-BCN is possible on QF/IB
MEL-KUL-LHR-BCN is possible on MH/MH or BA/IB

LIS-LHR-TLV is possible on BA/BA
LIS-MAD-TLV is possible on IB/IB

TXL-JFK is possible on AB (highly recommended over BA to save on YQ)
TXL-HEL-JFK is possible on AY/AY
TXL-LHR-JFK is possible on BA/BA
TXL-MAD-JFK is possible on AB or IB/IB

JFK-YVR is possible on CX (others possible, but no reason not to take this as the availability is almost always good)

YVR-LAX-MEL is possible on AA/QF
YVR-LAX-SYD or BNE-MEL is possible on AA/QF/QF
YVR-HKG-MEL is possible on CX/CX
YVR-NRT-SYD-MEL is possible on JL/JL/QF
YVR-NRT-BNE-MEL is possible on JL/QF/QF
YVR-DFW-SYD-MEL is possible on AA/QF/QF

One thing to be aware of is you cannot go through LHR 3 times so you can only route via LHR in two of the above, despite the fact I've listed it in 3 of your legs.

Use BAEC to do your searching. You'll need to be in 'Austria' to get an account though.

Example routing: MEL-SIN-LHR-BCN-LIS-LHR-TLV-TXL-MAD-JFK-YVR-HKG-MEL

13 maximum segments, 34960 miles ticketed mileage (just 40 miles under the limit!). I've taken the longest routings out of all of the above options I've given. You won't be able to add much more unless you take the shortest of the routings from each of the above options.

 

[Daver6]

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

One thing to be aware of is you cannot go through LHR 3 times so you can only route via LHR in two of the above, despite the fact I've listed it in 3 of your legs.

You can get around that by ensuring one of the times through LHR you stay for more than 24 hours. Not ideal, but something to consider if need be.

 

[yoyo]

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

Thanks for the tips. I was thinking to avoid LHR altogether to save money (even though we are going to be in London) Is the YQ just as expensive flying into LHR as it is when flying out? Also, I was thinking I can get another stop in there, is that correct? I am a member of BA already so I will do some searching there.

 

[hossein_au]

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

You can get around that by ensuring one of the times through LHR you stay for more than 24 hours. Not ideal, but something to consider if need be.

This will of course trigger the dreaded UK/LHR departure tax, which can easily run into hundreds of dollars (for long haul departures in premium cabins).

 

[bazza]

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

Hi everyone.

Starting to plan my RTW trip using QFF. I have a few queries I'd like to ask the community, as I am very much a newbie when it comes to this.

1) As I wont be travelling from or to Australia at all, I won't be flying any segments on QF. I will however be travelling on more than 2 Oneworld airlines. Will I still meet the conditions for booking this Oneworld RTW award (without flying QF at all)?

2) I can't book Jetstar or Iberia Express right (or any other airlines' budget subsidiaries)?

3) I am planning some less than 24 hour stopovers. However, for some of the flights I'm looking at, the 24hr period is pretty tight (e.g. arrive 5pm, leave 4:55pm next day). As I am booking nearly a year in advance, what happens if either flight is changed after booking so that the stopover becomes more than 24 hrs - I would then have more than 5 >24hr stopovers - how does that affect the ticketing/points calculation? I know there can only be 5 >24hr stopovers

4) A family member currently has the necessary points for 2 award RTW tickets, and this family member will book for a friend and I. Can this family member authorise me to make the booking over the phone with Qantas? What about subsequent changes after booking - does that still need to involve that family member or can I do the changes directly with Qantas?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[hutch]

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

Hi everyone.

Starting to plan my RTW trip using QFF. I have a few queries I'd like to ask the community, as I am very much a newbie when it comes to this.

1) As I wont be travelling from or to Australia at all, I won't be flying any segments on QF. I will however be travelling on more than 2 Oneworld airlines. Will I still meet the conditions for booking this Oneworld RTW award (without flying QF at all)?

2) I can't book Jetstar or Iberia Express right (or any other airlines' budget subsidiaries)?

3) I am planning some less than 24 hour stopovers. However, for some of the flights I'm looking at, the 24hr period is pretty tight (e.g. arrive 5pm, leave 4:55pm next day). As I am booking nearly a year in advance, what happens if either flight is changed after booking so that the stopover becomes more than 24 hrs - I would then have more than 5 >24hr stopovers - how does that affect the ticketing/points calculation? I know there can only be 5 >24hr stopovers

4) A family member currently has the necessary points for 2 award RTW tickets, and this family member will book for a friend and I. Can this family member authorise me to make the booking over the phone with Qantas? What about subsequent changes after booking - does that still need to involve that family member or can I do the changes directly with Qantas?

Thanks in advance!!

1. yes, it just needs to be 2 airlines other than Qantas
2. Any oneworld airline or their OW affliate airlines. Jetstar is not, Iberia express is.
3. If you have a compliant ticket and the airline changes flights, my understanding is that'll be their issue. Someone else should be able to confirm this.
4. No idea... but why don't they just transfer the points to you and then you make the booking?

 

[vetrade]

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

Bazza,
List of OW airlines and affiliates can be found at oneworld.com
If you book an itinerary that meets all the rules regarding transits & stopovers only to find that your flights are changed subsequently and technically you are then in breach of them then it's up to the airline to find an alternative without penalty to you. When you're planning though keep in mind that if you have to take a flight significantly later than you had planned it can throw out your trip plans so although you might still get to your intended destination it might not be much consolation if you miss a connection to a train trip or river cruise etc. If there's a risk of something like that you might choose to re-jig your itinerary to give yourself some "wriggle room". IME IB and QR seem to be the airlines most likely to change flight times on you.

To book flights with someone else's points you would have to impersonate them. It just won't work if they try and book for you because there are sure to be plenty of nuances which will need to be worked out on the spot - imagine them trying to book with a QF operator and having to refer every question to you at the same time - it would take "forever" and might be a good way of getting the operator off side when you definitely want then to help you as much as they can. As hutch says, it's far better for them to do a family transfer of points to your account and you book everything. The max no. of points you can transfer on any single occasion is 100,000. But you can do multiple transfers, say, a few days apart, to transfer as many as you need.

Edit: P.S. If you do have a significant flight time change that disrupts your forward itinerary get the QF operator to fix it - they will liaise with the other airline if necessary to work out a fix - but definitely don't try ringing the other airline to try and fix it yourself - you'll be stuck on the line for ages (probably to an OS number) and could easily run into language problems. The only time you would have to deal direct with a carrier airline would be at an airport because of a last minute change.

 

[petunia]

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

I'm looking to maximise our J class trip to UK later this year (2 x 280K oneworld Perth - London return). Is it worth the extra effort and expense of adding a couple of European destinations into the itinerary just for the sake of the J class experience? If so, where would you suggest? We're having an extended holiday in UK for four months (free accommodation) and also have a wedding to attend in Ireland, but can't burn a flight to there from UK as they're only economy seats.
On our previous oneworld award J trip to USA/Canada, the short hop from Chicago to Toronto was definitely a waste - a one hour flight in a small plane with no special seats/service.
The other option is to add a stopover on the flight home, but there are no connecting J seats to Perth through HK at the time we need to return.
Now I'm wondering if I should just buy return economy tickets and save the points for a future trip.
Would appreciate your thoughts as I've found the advice on this forum invaluable.

 

[vetrade]

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

I'm looking to maximise our J class trip to UK later this year (2 x 280K oneworld Perth - London return). Is it worth the extra effort and expense of adding a couple of European destinations into the itinerary just for the sake of the J class experience? If so, where would you suggest? We're having an extended holiday in UK for four months (free accommodation) and also have a wedding to attend in Ireland, but can't burn a flight to there from UK as they're only economy seats.
On our previous oneworld award J trip to USA/Canada, the short hop from Chicago to Toronto was definitely a waste - a one hour flight in a small plane with no special seats/service.
The other option is to add a stopover on the flight home, but there are no connecting J seats to Perth through HK at the time we need to return.
Now I'm wondering if I should just buy return economy tickets and save the points for a future trip.
Would appreciate your thoughts as I've found the advice on this forum invaluable.

Perth to London return on its own isn't a 280K OW award, petunia. If you book that as a reward it will just be a standard classic J award because the points will be significantly less than the 280K threshold that would trigger its conversion to a OW itinerary (which is where all the real benefits of the OW award lie i.e. 5 stopovers and up to 16 flight sectors). If you are thinking of adding some flights to "mainland" Europe just to get over the threshold I'd suggest you not bother. The J experience on short haul European flights is generally well below what you get on long haul flights - smaller, older planes, meals not as good etc - and the J seats on those flights are usually just three-across Y seats where they block the middle one for J pax; hardly a genuine J experience at all.

Just to clarify an apparent misconception you seem to have, you could fly to Ireland in Y on a 280K J award. On flights without J class (or where no J award seats are available) you can book into a Y award seat. Lots of people do that if no J awards are available but it's a flight which fits in with the rest of their itinerary and gets them where they need to go. I wouldn't call it a "waste" to do a short Y flight if the alternative is not to do it at all!

There is a huge number of options if you are looking for potential extra stopover places you could go. If you haven't already used it, try the OW interactive planner at oneworld.com.

 

[JohnM]

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

I'm looking to maximise our J class trip to UK later this year (2 x 280K oneworld Perth - London return). Is it worth the extra effort and expense of adding a couple of European destinations into the itinerary just for the sake of the J class experience? If so, where would you suggest? We're having an extended holiday in UK for four months (free accommodation) and also have a wedding to attend in Ireland, but can't burn a flight to there from UK as they're only economy seats.
On our previous oneworld award J trip to USA/Canada, the short hop from Chicago to Toronto was definitely a waste - a one hour flight in a small plane with no special seats/service.
The other option is to add a stopover on the flight home, but there are no connecting J seats to Perth through HK at the time we need to return.
Now I'm wondering if I should just buy return economy tickets and save the points for a future trip.
Would appreciate your thoughts as I've found the advice on this forum invaluable.

Intra-Europe J is very ordinary on all OW carriers. Don't expect anything like DOM J in Australia. The seats are Y-type with the middle seat blocked.

So, don't expect a J 'experience'. However, if there are places you want to see, and you can include them within the 280K itinerary, then why not? PER-LHR-PER uses only about half your distance allowance, does it not?

 

[petunia]

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

That's exactly the info I was after. Perfect! To clarify, my present oneworld award booking is for PER - MAN, LHR - AMS, ORY - MAD, BCN - LHR, LHR - PER.
But I am very close to dropping the side travel to Europe as we have the opportunity to have a house to live in whilst in UK. It seems so cheap and quick to travel to Europe from UK by budget airlines,rail, bus or car, but I am thinking we might focus just on UK this trip. Thanks for pointing out that the simple Perth - UK return in J won't be a 280K fare if I drop the additional flights.
I didn't realise about the Y flight to Ireland, on the Qantas website it only shows economy flights. Hmm.... decisions, decisions..........but what a lovely dilemma.
Thanks again for your input regarding the quality of J travel intra Europe.

 

[petunia]

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

Further to the above, I was debating whether to change our European destinations to further away from UK than Paris/Spain, somewhere say about 6 hours flight away with a decent J service. Just in order to retain the 5 stopovers.

 

[SvenSki]

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

Thanks so much to everyone for providing your advice through this forum. To all the newbies, spend not hours, but days and weeks going through hundreds of pages of info to learn all you can. Pretty much every question you can ask is probably already answered.

Along with Mrs Ski and Baby Ski, we have just booked our first RTW OW in J (we're doing days and days of research to ensure Baby Ski is as settled as possible for the flights and yes, we understand that we are going to take full responsibility for her mood on the flight, but still apologise in advance to anyone that feels their trip is destroyed merely because a baby is on board, no matter what the parents attitude is and how hard they work with the little one to ensure a flight without disturbances).

We definitely haven't taken full advantage of the mileage and stops, but wanted to keep things as simple as possible with Baby Ski.

Here are some things I learned along the way (outside the thousands of things that are repeated a million times in this forum):

1- We could not book a "transit" through HKG with the following: HKT-HGK on KA in J, less than 24 hours in HKG, then HKG-SYD on CX in J. Both tickets were visible separately to both myself and the phone agent, but CX does not allow that kind of through ticket. Strange... so we ended up deciding to go SIN-SYD on QF in J instead.
2- There are very few internal North American flights in J and so our tickets revert to Y. Which sucks. Unless of course anyone has done a J RTW redemption and been upgraded to F instead of downgraded to Y?
3- The Qantas agent suggested that if we transited LAX on arrival from SYD (in J class), that we would not have lounge access prior to the internal USA flight due to the fact our onward ticket was in Y. I don't believe this is true as I found the following on the OneWorld website: First and Business Class customers connecting on the same day of travel, or before 6am the following day, can access the lounge when travelling between an international long haul (a oneworld international long haul flight is defined as an international flight marketed and operated by any oneworld carrier with a scheduled flight time longer than 5 hours) and an international short haul or domestic flight (and vice-versa). Lounge access will be determined on the international long haul ticketed flight (either First of Business Class) regardless of the ticketed class of travel on the international short haul or domestic flight.
4- Do your research of ticket availability BEFORE calling the agent. It will make their life a LOT easier.
5- Some airlines have bassinets in J, others do not, so be sure to check.
6- Not every agent at the Qantas call centre can know everything about ticket rulings. Do your OWN research!

For those interested, here's our itinerary:
We make our own way to BNE to see friends on 19/1, then start the ticket from BNE.
QF J: BNE - SYD 21/1 (arrive 3pm - transit only - collect luggage and check in to AA flight the following day)
AA J: SYD - LAX 22/1
AA Y: SFO - LAX - YYZ
BA J: YYZ - LHR
BA J: LHR - FCO
QR J: FCO - DOH - HKT
QF J: SIN - SYD

(Yeah, yeah, I know... LOADS of segments left on the table, but would you want to get your partner, a baby and all their luggage on and off a plane another 7 times for a 20 hour visit to a city???)

I'm currently researching the following topics:
1- Find a way to upgrade on the SFO - LAX - YYZ flights - and get lounge access
2- Sort out bassinet seats
3- Understand luggage allowances
4- Find the best lounges to access at each airport!!!

And I'm doing this by researching more of the forums and calling the individual airlines.

Again, thanks so much for everyone's input to help me get to this point and a huge shout out to the call centre agents who have helped me! 4hr 45mins to get the award booked! And that is AFTER I had done months of research!!!