Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Hoe Bing Lo]

Dear gurus, I am planning a trip of a decade for my wife and I.

Was wanting to do J and visit the following places.

CNS-BNE-SIN-xLIS-xZRH-RTM-xOSL-xARN-HEL-xNRT-SFO-BNE-CNS

The award pricing doesn't work because I keep getting flights that fly back and forths to LHR when doing the European cities.

May I enlist the help of geniuses to make this come through?

Planning now for travel in Jun 2019 hopefully

 

[Danger]

Dear gurus, I am planning a trip of a decade for my wife and I.

Was wanting to do J and visit the following places.

CNS-BNE-SIN-xLIS-xZRH-RTM-xOSL-xARN-HEL-xNRT-SFO-BNE-CNS

The award pricing doesn't work because I keep getting flights that fly back and forths to LHR when doing the European cities.

May I enlist the help of geniuses to make this come through?

Planning now for travel in Jun 2019 hopefully

There are no oneworld flights between SIN and LIS. At a guess I'd say there's also none between LIS and ZRH, nor RTM and ARN. That would be the reason you're being sent back through LHR. You will need to route via a oneworld hub either side of LIS and, I suspect, ZRH, RTM and OSL

Try looking here: oneworld Online Timetable. That will give you the oneworld flights (direct and connection) out of each airport.

Without checking availability or mileage consider: CNS-xBNE-xSIN-xHEL/xLHR-LIS-xHEL/xLHR/xMAD-ZRH-xLHR-RTM-xLHR-OSL-xLHR/ xMAD/xHEL-ARN-xHEL-NRT-SFO-xSYD-CNS.

Note:

1. "x" is one common way to indicate a transit but I'm guessing you're actually intending each of those to be a stopover.
2. HEL-NRT can also be achieved by HEL-xSIN-NRT OR HEL-xHKG-NRT or HEL-xBKK-NRT.
3. NRT-SFO can also be achieved by NRT-xHKG-SFO OR NRT-xBKK-xHKG-SFO.
4. I suspect you may have an issue with mileage. For example: Great Circle Mapper. You may need to consider some side trips that are separate to this oneworld award.

 

[geoffshaw]

Remember you can only transit through an airport twice, so you wouldn't be able to go through LHR & HEL enough times to make that work.

 

[flychrisfly]

Dear gurus, I am planning a trip of a decade for my wife and I.

Was wanting to do J and visit the following places.

CNS-BNE-SIN-xLIS-xZRH-RTM-xOSL-xARN-HEL-xNRT-SFO-BNE-CNS

The award pricing doesn't work because I keep getting flights that fly back and forths to LHR when doing the European cities.

May I enlist the help of geniuses to make this come through?

Planning now for travel in Jun 2019 hopefully

You want to return home from Tokyo to Brisbane via San Francisco? Long way to go for < 24 hours. Also, might be tricky given the flight times out of SFO are usually late to Asia/Oz

 

[Hoe Bing Lo]

You want to return home from Tokyo to Brisbane via San Francisco? Long way to go for < 24 hours. Also, might be tricky given the flight times out of SFO are usually late to Asia/Oz

Hi, I am not set on the itinerary.

Just would really love to visit

LIS
ZRH
RTM
OSL
ARN
HEL
NRT

The starting point is CNS

So I am open to all possible options. I just plotted those on GCMAP and it looks like a reasonable way to fly but when I go to qantas multicity, it the flights between RTM, OSL, ARN,HEL all transit through LHR and so would disqualify me for the 280K award in J.

Hence the request for help to see if one of the brains trust here have a way around it.

 

[Guvner]

Looked at Finnair as an option?

 

[geoffshaw]

You could do something like:

CNS-xBNE/SYD/MEL-NRT-HEL-OSL-xLHR-LIS-xLHR-RTM-(SURFACE/PAID SEGMENT)-ZRH-xHKG-xBNE/SYD/MEL-CNS

Couldn't get ARN in there but you can only have 5 stops anyway.

 

[Wanderlust_tim]

Hi, I am not set on the itinerary.

Just would really love to visit

LIS
ZRH
RTM
OSL
ARN
HEL
NRT

The starting point is CNS

So I am open to all possible options. I just plotted those on GCMAP and it looks like a reasonable way to fly but when I go to qantas multicity, it the flights between RTM, OSL, ARN,HEL all transit through LHR and so would disqualify me for the 280K award in J.

Hence the request for help to see if one of the brains trust here have a way around it.

I think you might need to take a surface sector within this. I am only focusing on the European legs here:

HEL-ARN (Finnair)
ARN-OSL (Cash fare - no Oneworld direct flights)
OSL-LIS (Via LHR on BA)
LIS-ZRH (via MAD on IB)
ZRH-AMS (via LHR on BA)
AMS-HEL (Finnair)

You could potentially swap RTM for AMS - I remember travelling on a fast train from Rotterdam Centraal to Schiphol on a 15 minute fast train a couple of years ago. Maybe this would give you more options?

 

[Hoe Bing Lo]

I think you might need to take a surface sector within this. I am only focusing on the European legs here:

HEL-ARN (Finnair)
ARN-OSL (Cash fare - no Oneworld direct flights)
OSL-LIS (Via LHR on BA)
LIS-ZRH (via MAD on IB)
ZRH-AMS (via LHR on BA)
AMS-HEL (Finnair)

You could potentially swap RTM for AMS - I remember travelling on a fast train from Rotterdam Centraal to Schiphol on a 15 minute fast train a couple of years ago. Maybe this would give you more options?

Thank you Wanderlust, I will try that in the qantas multi city tool and see if it works out Most appreciated!

 

[Hoe Bing Lo]

You could do something like:

CNS-xBNE/SYD/MEL-NRT-HEL-OSL-xLHR-LIS-xLHR-RTM-(SURFACE/PAID SEGMENT)-ZRH-xHKG-xBNE/SYD/MEL-CNS

Couldn't get ARN in there but you can only have 5 stops anyway.

Appreciate that Geoff Shaw, I'll give that a go. Thank you. Pair that with option of Rotterdam train service may just do the trick!

 

[Hoe Bing Lo]

Looked at Finnair as an option?

Hi Guvner, thank you. So would that mean I would have to check Finnair award availability and then call Qantas to make the bookings? Apologies if that is a stupid question. I don't have any tools that I use just qantas multi city search.

 

[geoffshaw]

You can see available Finnair seats on the Qantas website. They will show as flight number starting with AY.

 

[madrooster]

BA's new channel surcharge that has been applicable to GDS bookings since the start of November appears to be applicable to awards too.

This will now add 10.00 USD per BA segment booked, so a routing of HKG-LHR-OSL-LHR-HKG all on BA will incur 40.00 USD in channel surcharges. This is on top of the fuel fines that BA charges.

 

[madrooster]

November update of the fuel fines listing in the wiki...

1. More BA routes added
2. More CX routes added
3. KA routes are now also covered
4. Info about AY fuel fines and the way they work has been added
5. AB has been removed
6. Numerous S7 routes added
7. All international MH routes added (except BWN) - yes, pretty much all routes including seasonal routes
8. CX/KA fuel fine amounts updated for November (they change monthly)

The biggest change in this update is that I've done enough testing to know that AY only charge a single fuel surcharge of 125.00 EUR for up to six AY flights. It does not matter if the AY flights are in a consecutive chain or not and it does not matter how many of them are short haul or long haul. The number of stopovers or transits is also irrelevant for the 125.00 EUR fuel surcharge to kick in.

Example route: FCO AY HEL BA LHR AY HEL AY NRT AY HEL AY JFK

This would incur just a single 125.00 EUR fuel surcharge (for the AY flights) and represents quite good value. The BA flight would still incur the usual BA 33.50 USD fuel fine.

In contrast, as expected, it's poor value to only do one AY flight, therefore if it's a short haul route where you have the choice of AY or another oneworld carrier, you will find using the alternate carrier will be cheaper, for example on HEL-LHR, BA will be cheaper.

 

[creeno]

Super chuffed today. My brother presented me with a challenge, and within 2 hours, the following J class itinerary for 2 pax spanning 6 weeks [May 2018 departure] was constructed and booked:

SYD-ADL-DOH-BRU [QF/QR]
MAD-GIG [IB]
GIG-JFK-YVR [AA/CX]
YVR-HKG-SYD [CX]

Taxes approx $950 per person. 34870 miles (phew!).

I expect that changes will occur as the trip evolves, and will certainly be hoping for SYD-DOH direct to open up (to give us some more miles to play with for potentially another internal European flight)....but considering my 2016 trip took the better part of a month of research & route changes, I can't believe how easily this came together today.

Will always be grateful to the brains trust here that educates and guides us. Thank you!

 

[k_sheep]

Wow great use of 2 hours! Fabulous itinerary!

 

[Danger]

My turn to bemoan the laborious, arduous process that is this award.

I spent the better half of yesterday afternoon researching J award flights then phoning Qantas to book - because of course the tool wouldn't work. The agent could not see AY availability that BA was showing. The agent also could not find any flights from BOS to fifteen US cities in September of next year. I'm noting a fair amount of stinginess with AA, in addition to what almost all of us experience with QF. 'Print' several billion frequent flyer points a year and I guess this is what you get.

Another crack first thing this morning and I managed to lock in the first three stops, again over the phone because of the 3002 error with the online tool. The agent was able to see an IB flight that was not showing on the QF online tool!

It would be very helpful if someone in the know could add the award release dates for the various oneworld airlines to the Wiki. I would do it if I knew where the dates are here on AFF. When someone puts them in I'll be phoning back a particular QF agent in AKL who said Qantas does not know when other airlines release seats.

 

[Captain Halliday]

It would be very helpful if someone in the know could add the award release dates for the various oneworld airlines to the Wiki. I would do it if I knew where the dates are here on AFF. When someone puts them in I'll be phoning back a particular QF agent in AKL who said Qantas does not know when other airlines release seats.

@Danger I'm not sure where they are on AFF, but they're easy to find in my spreadsheet. Please note this was as of March 2017:
RJ 362
QR 361
AY 361
UL 361
IB 361
CX 360
IB 360
AB 359
BA 354
QF 353
LA 331
AA 330
JA 330
JL 330
MH 330
JJ 329

 

[snabbu]

@Danger I'm not sure where they are on AFF, but they're easy to find in my spreadsheet. Please note this was as of March 2017:
RJ 362
QR 361
AY 361
UL 361
IB 361
CX 360
IB 360
AB 359
BA 354
QF 353
LA 331
AA 330
JA 330
JL 330
MH 330
JJ 329

Added to the wiki towards the bottom.

 

[madrooster]

@Danger I'm not sure where they are on AFF, but they're easy to find in my spreadsheet. Please note this was as of March 2017:

I've updated the wiki with the most up to date info. I added the number of days for S7 as well.