Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[Captain Halliday]

hey all,

First time trying to book RTW with Qantas so seeking some assistance.

I'm seeing award availability on aa.com but apparently Qantas can't find the award seats??? Am I doing something wrong?

IE: AA6045 & AA6006 economy on 25/05/2020
AA shows award availability but Qantas says no.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

This thread is about the One World Classic flight reward. There is no requirement to go RTW.*

One World’s round-the-world product is very different. It’s called the Oneworld Explorer. Details of can be found here.

If you can’t see the reward flights you want on QF, try searching BA.

 

[Cerveza]

DC3 thank you!

 

[JohnM]

This thread is about the One World Classic flight . There is no requirement to go RTW.*

One World’s round-the-world product is very different. It’s called the Oneworld Explorer. Details of can be found here.

If you can’t see the reward flights you want on QF, try searching BA.

Beat me to it Cap'n.

Nb: One World Classic Award flight.

It's all very well when peeps use the 'RTW' shorthand for these OW Award itineraries, as it is possible - but unlike a (paid) OneWorld Explorer (and Global Explorer), not mandatory - to go RTW.

While I imagine many peeps choose to go RTW on a OWA, it could mislead some peeps into structuring their OWA as a RTW when they do not need to and possibly causing unnecessary juggling to avoid exceeding the maximum mileage.

It also must cause confusion when phoning if the 'RTW' terminology is when asking for award availability - especially I would guess if getting an offshore call centre.

 

[knightfall88]

This one point is concerning me, it came from the 'Incorrect information you've been given by Qantas Contact Centre' thread.

What was said:

There is no 'rule'.
It just won't work as airline tickets have an expiry of one year. That's how airline ticketing works, no matter what airline (that uses etkts). Jetstar, AirAsia, Scoot are examples of airlines who don't use e-tickets.

You may be able to book it, but I can tell you with 100% certainty, when the time comes to take your flight in Feb 2021, your ticket will be 'void' or 'expired'. Booking will be there, but the flights you won't be able to take.

Essentially what was said is that e-tickets will expire 12 months after your FIRST issue. So if you have flights after 12 months which some of us do as you can continue to add more flights as they are released then there is a problem? My understanding was that everytime you add more flights and the ticket is re-issued, that becomes the new issue date and will expire 12 months from that date.

My first ticket was issued in August 2019.

I now have flights in May 2020 and December 2020 on this ticket. I want to know that come August 2020, will my ticket expire. If so what the heck do I do then when I still have flights in December 2020?

 

[ozflier]

Please correct me if i am wrong but i thought that a ticket had currency for 12 months after the date of departure of the first flight .

 

[DC3]

Please correct me if i am wrong but i thought that a ticket had currency for 12 months after the date of departure of the first flight .

I would hope so.

 

[DC3]

... My first ticket was issued in August 2019.

I now have flights in May 2020 and December 2020 on this ticket. I want to know that come August 2020, will my ticket expire. If so what the heck do I do then when I still have flights in December 2020?

I’m in a similar situation. It has all been ticketed, as I have the e-ticket. So, it’s all good.

As we know, there’s a lot of wrong information being spread by some Call Centre staff.

 

[ozflier]

Just a reminder that Royal Air Maroc (RAM ) is definitely joining OW from April 1 this year.
It has an excellent range of internal services in Africa something OW does not offer except for Comair in SA.

Network

Our airline network

www.royalairmaroc.com

I would hope that there will be a good offering of award seats come that date or soon after.
Looks like the quickest option from Oz to get to their main hub Casablanca (CMN) is via Doha .

 

[Captain Halliday]

The saga of booking my One World Classic Flight Award begins!

My itinerary:
SINxHKG-AMS <stop>
CDGxLHRxHNDxSYD-BNE <stop>
BNExSYD-NRT <stop>
NRTxHKG-BNE <end>

3 pax.

All in J.

All visible on QF (and cross-checked with BA).

The multi-city booking tool worked fine right up to the final flights NRTxHKG-BNE.

I had searched NRT-BNE, so I knew it wasn't a MSC issue.

I called QF where <name> in AKL looked in his computer and could see everything I wanted.

"I can book it for you and waive the phone booking fee" he said.

In the distance a choir of angels begin heralding what seemed like a QF miracle.

But it was too good to be true.

As Mr AKL began building the trip he saw HND-SYD on JL drop from 3 available seats to two.

I checked again but it was still showing as available on the QF website.

Mr AKL suggested I book them online while they were visible and he would then add all the other sectors and waive the change fee.

I was slightly sceptical, but after confirming I could cancel everything without penalty if it went wrong, I booked the NRTxSYD-BNE online.

Armed with my PNR, Mr AKL set about adding the other sectors.

"Uh oh." he said.

"LHR-HND is now showing only two seats as well."

"Lets secure all the others, so we don lose any more and I'll come back to that one."

Fair enough I though.

Until he got to the last sector HKG-BNE.

It was now only showing 2 available also.

But Mr AKL also told me he'd been taking screenshots as he went.

So he booked all the other flights and sent a request to the One World helpdesk, along with his screenshots, asking for a seat release on the two outstanding flights.

Why do I not feel very confident about this...

To be continued...

 

[Tam]

I have just managed to book one of these things for 4 people in business class (one flight in economy) for late Dec and into Jan 2021. I am bronze. All online. I honestly cannot believe it but the points have been deducted and the e-ticket has been emailed through, with the all important ticket number against all 4 names. Is this too good to be true? I'm feeling like the rug could be pulled at any time.

Also, $6800 in fees! Good God! Flights on Qatar and BA out of London are the main contributors I suspect. Pleased to get 4x J on BA1. Business class flights in the christmas holiday period would be quadruple that for 4 of us, so I still think that good value.

I really had very little idea what I was doing but what I did have was time and patience....and lots of lists where I cross-checked and then checked again. And i ran that it through at least 50 times online, changing flights and stop-overs, tweaking here and there. I got errors every single time until it just worked!

 

[blu]

"... BA out of London "
LHR departure tax (APD) is to be avoided. As J taxes are double the rate of Y (at over $300 each).
We try to depart from elsewhere and use LHR as a transit only to avoid it.

 

[Tam]

"... BA out of London "
LHR departure tax (APD) is to be avoided. As J taxes are double the rate of Y (at over $300 each).
We try to depart from elsewhere and use LHR as a transit only to avoid it.

I agree it is not ideal but I was so beaten down and actually amazed that I had flights for 4 people, that I just went with it. I was actually dreaming (nightmares?) about flight sectors at that point!

I need to find business class availability for one flight that I could only manage to find in economy and I can't even bring myself to open the laptop. And of course if I do find a flight, I'll have to call, which is equally as terrifying.

 

[frodo]

from my previous RTW search, it's hard to find J availability from Europe to the US unless flying out of London with BA for one person let alone 4. AA from cdg/mad/bcn are non existant and IB availability isn't much better
So it comes down to whether you want to only stopover in London to reduce the taxes

 

[Captain Halliday]

The saga of booking my One World Classic Flight Award begins!

My itinerary:
SINxHKG-AMS <stop>
CDGxLHRxHNDxSYD-BNE <stop>
BNExSYD-NRT <stop>
NRTxHKG-BNE <end>

3 pax.

All in J.

All visible on QF (and cross-checked with BA).

The multi-city booking tool worked fine right up to the final flights NRTxHKG-BNE.

I had searched NRT-BNE, so I knew it wasn't a MSC issue.

I called QF where <name> in AKL looked in his computer and could see everything I wanted.

"I can book it for you and waive the phone booking fee" he said.

In the distance a choir of angels begin heralding what seemed like a QF miracle.

But it was too good to be true.

As Mr AKL began building the trip he saw HND-SYD on JL drop from 3 available seats to two.

I checked again but it was still showing as available on the QF website.

Mr AKL suggested I book them online while they were visible and he would then add all the other sectors and waive the change fee.

I was slightly sceptical, but after confirming I could cancel everything without penalty if it went wrong, I booked the NRTxSYD-BNE online.

Armed with my PNR, Mr AKL set about adding the other sectors.

"Uh oh." he said.

"LHR-HND is now showing only two seats as well."

"Lets secure all the others, so we don lose any more and I'll come back to that one."

Fair enough I though.

Until he got to the last sector HKG-BNE.

It was now only showing 2 available also.

But Mr AKL also told me he'd been taking screenshots as he went.

So he booked all the other flights and sent a request to the One World helpdesk, along with his screenshots, asking for a seat release on the two outstanding flights.

Why do I not feel very confident about this...

To be continued...

I’m sure you will all be shocked to hear both CX and JL declined to release a seat on their respective services.

While I was happy to accept a miracle, I was highly doubtful Mr AKL’s screenshots would be much use as neither flight had been ticketed.

So I needed something to replace LHR-HND and HKG-BNE.

After lots of searching I found HEL-HND a week later that my ideal dates, but HKG-BNE, including with various transits, was still showing U0 across the board.

I figured I should lock in the HEL-HND and work out the other sector later.

On call #2, Mr HBA couldn’t see HEL-HND on JL. It was visible to me on both BAEC and QF, but once again it seemed like phantom availability.

Mr HBA tried a few combinations before suggesting “you sound like you know a bit about putting these together, why don’t you look for some combinations and when you find something call us back an we’ll waive the fees.”

Fair enough I guess. So back to the searching...

To be continued...

 

[11sjw]

Just got back frommy OWA (3xJ) with my family. All went well. Qatar J clearly a cut above CX, although we did scoreone of the "family" cubicles. BA Club World turned out to be the Evelop Charter jet so ntmuch there (sloping bed, EX Singapore I believe/have read). Flying BA Club Europe out of LHR T3 was handy as theCX and QF Lounges were available and muchbetter than the BA offering.

Thanks to all who helped in the booking process about a year ago!

 

[vical22]

Hi all,
Just at the planning stage with below itinerary.

TPE-ICN (Stop)
-GMP-HND-SYD (Stop)
-HKG-BCN (Stop)
-CDG-DOH-BKK (Stop)
-HKG (Stop)
-SYD (End) - TPE

The total distance is 34,391mi with 12 segments, so I do not see any issue here.

It includes 1 stop and 1 connection at SYD and HKG.
Is there any problem with this?

Tried to test the plan online, but it looks like I cannot start the multicity tool with TPE and it gives an error when there are more than 6 flights.

 

[stirlo]

So once you've booked on a bunch of random airlines (JL, BA, IB, LAN for me) how do you arrange seat selection? It's not possible on the qantas website or app it seems...

 

[DC3]

So once you've booked on a bunch of random airlines (JL, BA, IB, LAN for me) how do you arrange seat selection? It's not possible on the qantas website or app it seems...

I select seats on the website of the respective carrier.

 

[motef]

So once you've booked on a bunch of random airlines (JL, BA, IB, LAN for me) how do you arrange seat selection? It's not possible on the qantas website or app it seems...

Malaysia Airlines Manage Booking tool.

 

[11sjw]

So once you've booked on a bunch of random airlines (JL, BA, IB, LAN for me) how do you arrange seat selection? It's not possible on the qantas website or app it seems...

If in J, BA won't let you preselect without paying (what I think is) a hefty fee. Not sure re F.