Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[cjd600]

Familyman1

Just wondering if there is any reason why you chose the "stopover" as Asia. Why not somewhere in Australia & just pay return fares say Syd-Mel or Bne-Syd in your case.

The T and C's...
14.3.5 A Classic Flight Reward Itinerary must contain no more than one departure from the city or country of first departure on that Itinerary.

 

[Familyman1]

Familyman1

Just wondering if there is any reason why you chose the "stopover" as Asia. Why not somewhere in Australia & just pay return fares say Syd-Mel or Bne-Syd in your case.

As soon as you return to the country you started from, the trip is over.

 

[wingtip626]

Are Qantas call centre operators able to book CX flights 360 days in advance? Or are they limited by QF’s award release of 353 days?

 

[Familyman1]

They should be available 360 days in advance - on-line and at call centres.

 

[Familyman1]

I just checked on-line and it seems like not all CX flights are showing. For example BNE to HKG is not showing for 360 days in advance. However, if you search for BNE to PVG, CX flights from BNE to HKG do show 360 days in advance.

A few months ago, I booked BNE to PVG via HKG online and just cancelled the HKG to PVG later when I was making some other changes. That worked fine.

Alternatively, you could just use the call centre which may have all CX flight availability up to 360 days in advance.

 

[p--and--t]

As soon as you return to the country you started from, the trip is over.

The T and C's...
14.3.5 A Classic Flight Reward Itinerary must contain no more than one departure from the city or country of first departure on that Itinerary.

Thank-you for that. I was mistakenly under the impression it was related to city only and didn't pick up country as well. Not tried a two holiday itinerary as yet. Goals!!

 

[wingtip626]

I just checked on-line and it seems like not all CX flights are showing. For example BNE to HKG is not showing for 360 days in advance. However, if you search for BNE to PVG, CX flights from BNE to HKG do show 360 days in advance.

A few months ago, I booked BNE to PVG via HKG online and just cancelled the HKG to PVG later when I was making some other changes. That worked fine.

Alternatively, you could just use the call centre which may have all CX flight availability up to 360 days in advance.

Thanks for the help. Realised I had to click the "Flexible with dates" option to show the full availability calendar as the pop-up on the booking page is limited to 353 days.

 

[exceladdict]

Thank-you for that. I was mistakenly under the impression it was related to city only and didn't pick up country as well. Not tried a two holiday itinerary as yet. Goals!!

Can always start in AKL or DPS - whatever's cheapest for you to position to

 

[Warren Mason]

Warren, One other trick you should consider. I noticed that your trip is just to Europe. You could consider having 2 holidays in Europe instead of just one. We have done this before and will be doing it next year as well (one trip in summer and one over Christmas). You just need to stop the first trip in Asia and start the second trip from Asia. In our case, Singapore is our "6 month stopover" and we will just pay for the SIN-BNE & BNE-SIN flights (we used Scoot last time for this). Keeping within the 35,000 miles can be a slight problem but it is do-able. Here is the itinerary I am current half way through booking for 2 in J and 1 in Y:
BNE-HKG(S)-LHR(S, surface)-BGO-HEL-SIN(6 month Stop)-HEL(S)-DUS(S, surface)-FRA-HEL-PVG-HKG-BNE (34,849 mi)

So we will have a month in the UK and Norway in Summer and spend Xmas/New Year in Germany and Austria. Hopefully. I've still got to book the flights home from Europe which could be a problem in January.
Including 6 flights on Finnair seems to be another good trick to keep the fees and taxes down. It requires a stopover in Helsinki and 2 transits. I have been booking these Finnair flights exactly 361 days before I want to fly, soon after they appear at 10am Brisbane time.

Great idea but I can't get that much time off work. Getting home looked to be a problem till I saw flights to Adelaide from Madrid and Barcelona via Doha and then on to Sydney. That is how I am hoping to get home also in January .

 

[melbkate]

Hello, I have booked my third J flight to Europe thanks to all info here. Thanks!

I have one issue with this trip. I am flying home from Helsinki AY - NRT and QF NRT-MEL

I want to get to HEL from Nice. There are seats available and can be seen on the Qantas site. However, 2 different Qantas reps have tried to book them on my booking and they can't. One said it was something to do with the HEL-NRT flight and they want you to leave from HEL not NCE or something. The 2 flights are on the same day but with plenty of time (12hours) between.

Does anyone have any idea about this? My only option I can see is to book the NCE-HEL flights on a separate booking. Costing more points. Or, as we will be ending our holiday in Biarritz, pay for flights from Paris to Helsinki.

This is my booking as it stands: QF MEL-SIN, QR SIN-DOH, QR DOH-FCO, STOP IB FCO-MAD, IB MAD-EAS, STOP (train to NICE, PARIS or BORDEAUX to fly to Helsinki) AY HEL-NRT, QF NRT-MEL

 

[Familyman1]

Hello, I have booked my third J flight to Europe thanks to all info here. Thanks!

I have one issue with this trip. I am flying home from Helsinki AY - NRT and QF NRT-MEL

I want to get to HEL from Nice. There are seats available and can be seen on the Qantas site. However, 2 different Qantas reps have tried to book them on my booking and they can't. One said it was something to do with the HEL-NRT flight and they want you to leave from HEL not NCE or something. The 2 flights are on the same day but with plenty of time (12hours) between.

Does anyone have any idea about this? My only option I can see is to book the NCE-HEL flights on a separate booking. Costing more points. Or, as we will be ending our holiday in Biarritz, pay for flights from Paris to Helsinki.

This is my booking as it stands: QF MEL-SIN, QR SIN-DOH, QR DOH-FCO, STOP IB FCO-MAD, IB MAD-EAS, STOP (train to NICE, PARIS or BORDEAUX to fly to Helsinki) AY HEL-NRT, QF NRT-MEL

That's interesting. I had the same problem yesterday trying to add a HEL-DUS flight to my booking. The seats were definitely available but they couldn't be added to my connecting SIN-HEL flight I booked the day before. The Qantas rep could see the seat availability and so could I, but they couldn't book them. Strangely, the Qantas rep was able to book the flight for my kid's (different booking number) but not mine.

In the end, I was put on wait-list for the flight and qantas have sent an email to Finnair explaining the problem (with screen shots showing the seats are available). I was told the problem probably wouldn't be addressed by Finnair for a few days due to the holiday period and that I should ring qantas back late next week to see what the story is.

My worry is obviously that the seat availability will disappear before Finnair fix the problem.

There must be a temporary glitch in the Finnair system at the moment.

 

[cjd600]

Hello, I have booked my third J flight to Europe thanks to all info here. Thanks!

I have one issue with this trip. I am flying home from Helsinki AY - NRT and QF NRT-MEL

I want to get to HEL from Nice. There are seats available and can be seen on the Qantas site. However, 2 different Qantas reps have tried to book them on my booking and they can't. One said it was something to do with the HEL-NRT flight and they want you to leave from HEL not NCE or something. The 2 flights are on the same day but with plenty of time (12hours) between.

Does anyone have any idea about this? My only option I can see is to book the NCE-HEL flights on a separate booking. Costing more points. Or, as we will be ending our holiday in Biarritz, pay for flights from Paris to Helsinki.

This is my booking as it stands: QF MEL-SIN, QR SIN-DOH, QR DOH-FCO, STOP IB FCO-MAD, IB MAD-EAS, STOP (train to NICE, PARIS or BORDEAUX to fly to Helsinki) AY HEL-NRT, QF NRT-MEL

I had all sorts of trouble with seemingly available NCE-HEL unable to be added in to my award booking (to connect HEL-JFK).
Ended up having to go BA NCE-LGW-HEL...

 

[madrooster]

here must be a temporary glitch in the Finnair system at the moment.

AY uses married segment availability. This is why you can't add the seat in after the fact as it's probably no longer available as a through journey.

 

[Familyman1]

I had all sorts of trouble with seemingly available NCE-HEL unable to be added in to my award booking (to connect HEL-JFK).
Ended up having to go BA NCE-LGW-HEL...

When was that cjd500? Was your booking business class? My booking was in business but my kids are flying economy (there were no problems with the kids booking). So wonder if the Finnair problem is limited to business class bookings.

 

[Familyman1]

AY uses married segment availability. This is why you can't add the seat in after the fact as it's probably no longer available as a through journey.

Hi Madrooster, I don't think that was the problem in this case. I had a very good qantas premium rep working on this problem for over an hour and he never once suggested this as an explanation. And he had no problem adding the flight to my daughters economy booking with exactly the same flights.

 

[cjd600]

When was that cjd500? Was your booking business class? My booking was in business but my kids are flying economy (there were no problems with the kids booking). So wonder if the Finnair problem is limited to business class bookings.

Mine was 4 x J, would have been early October I was trying to add them, for Oct '19

 

[melbkate]

AY uses married segment availability. This is why you can't add the seat in after the fact as it's probably no longer available as a through journey.

Hi madrooster could you explain this a bit more to me? The rep could add the seat if they took away the HEL-NRT flight I think

 

[madrooster]

Hi Madrooster, I don't think that was the problem in this case. I had a very good qantas premium rep working on this problem for over an hour and he never once suggested this as an explanation. And he had no problem adding the flight to my daughters economy booking with exactly the same flights.

AY sells their segments based on origin destination including for awards. The availability for NCE-SIN is not the same as HEL-SIN. AY may be willing to give an award seat for HEL-SIN but not NCE-HEL-SIN. This is the issue you have - they won't give you NCE-HEL-SIN which is why you can't add NCE-HEL.

Whilst there's many QF premium reps that are great, and may spend hours working on a problem, the fact they spent hours on the problem says a lot about whether they really know their stuff. To any seasoned rep, they would've been able to tell you why it wasn't working in 30 seconds.

Your kids are in Y, Y and J are not the same cabin. AY may have been quite happy to give you X class availability for NCE-HEL-SIN but not U class availability.

Hi madrooster could you explain this a bit more to me? The rep could add the seat if they took away the HEL-NRT flight I think

See my above explanation - it applies to your situation as well.

 

[melbkate]

That's interesting. I had the same problem yesterday trying to add a HEL-DUS flight to my booking. The seats were definitely available but they couldn't be added to my connecting SIN-HEL flight I booked the day before. The Qantas rep could see the seat availability and so could I, but they couldn't book them. Strangely, the Qantas rep was able to book the flight for my kid's (different booking number) but not mine.

In the end, I was put on wait-list for the flight and qantas have sent an email to Finnair explaining the problem (with screen shots showing the seats are available). I was told the problem probably wouldn't be addressed by Finnair for a few days due to the holiday period and that I should ring qantas back late next week to see what the story is.

My worry is obviously that the seat availability will disappear before Finnair fix the problem.

There must be a temporary glitch in the Finnair system at the moment.

Interesting, will be looking out for how you / Finnair resolve this..

 

[melbkate]

AY sells their segments based on origin destination including for awards. The availability for NCE-SIN is not the same as HEL-SIN. AY may be willing to give an award seat for HEL-SIN but not NCE-HEL-SIN. This is the issue you have - they won't give you NCE-HEL-SIN which is why you can't add NCE-HEL.

Whilst there's many QF premium reps that are great, and may spend hours working on a problem, the fact they spent hours on the problem says a lot about whether they really know their stuff. To any seasoned rep, they would've been able to tell you why it wasn't working in 30 seconds.

Your kids are in Y, Y and J are not the same cabin. AY may have been quite happy to give you X class availability for NCE-HEL-SIN but not U class availability.



See my above explanation - it applies to your situation as well.

Thanks for that - it's funny as I did a new dummy booking with points on Qantas and I could do NCE-HEL-NRT-MEL