Oneworld Classic Flight Reward Discussion - The Definitive Thread

[11sjw]

Might have to reconsider then but I also noticed that aside from BA there is also Icelandair who are using 767's instead of A320's so do offer better seat pitch and width for a similar price in J even if I miss out on points and SC ( they are even slight better in economy).

Decisions, decisions!

Plus you maintain a better baggage allowance which is handy if the rest of your flights are in J and you don't have status.

 

[GaryLG]

Plus you maintain a better baggage allowance which is handy if the rest of your flights are in J and you don't have status.

True.

 

[cambriamarsh]

That's one of those questions like "how long is a piece of string?" but this is what I've seen over the past 3 months:
Release date patterns have only recently started to be more or less reliable now that governments are indicating they will open up to international travel. That's particularly so for Australia where most airlines stopped flying here and stopped listing any flights at all.
Individual airlines have varying J release patterns for differnt routes. You really do have to look at each route on its own merits


JL - 4 - 6 weeks ago there was excellent availability for some routes such as HND - SYD right on 360 days but for LHR - HND I didn't see anything around 360 days at all, but then sporadic availability started showing up at about 330 days. JL HEL - HND was only showing Y, as well.

QR - Routes into and out of Australia have only recently even started to be listed for revenue fares. J awards have been exceptionally variable from one route to another. E.g., there's been plenty of J available for JNB - DOH at 330 - 360 days but virtually nothing showing on flights to connect to from DOH to Europe such as CPH, NCE, ARN, OSL etc. over the same time frame. I did see some European routes available at 250 - 280 days. That made trying to book connecting flights almost impossible.

Part of the reason for that might be because JNB-DOH has 3 flights on most days but some of the flights connecting to Europe have only one flight a day.

AA. I haven't searched for AA availability in recent times but they are notorious for not releasing J awards at around 330 days as expected. For some routes they may not release any seats until approx. 250 days out and for others like LAX - LAS they may never release any J at all. Another bugbear of AA is that they very often only show J availability between 2 cities via some other out-of-the-way city with very long transit times or which blows out the overall trip distance so much that the total trip time is long.

And never ever give up. Flying AKL-TLV a couple of years ago and had given up on getting J in the AKL-HKG flight so went via SYD. Sitting in the lounge after check in and had a look, found J availability. Aaargh!

 

[motef]

I am looking a tacking the next legs onto our OWA for SIN-MLE retun and looking at UL its lists Premium Economoy and First.

I didnt think UL had either of these?

 

[motef]

And just to clarify its a maximum of 1 Stop over and 2 transit per city?

So i cant transit DOH 3 times (less than 24hrs) but can transit, stopover then transit?

So this itinerary would be ok?

xx-CDG-DOH(transit)-SIN(STOP)
separate SIN-SYD-SIN on SQ
SIN-DOH(STOP)-MLE(STOP)
MLE-DOH(TRANSIT)-SIN(TRANSIT)-SYD

 

[Mr H]

And just to clarify its a maximum of 1 Stop over and 2 transit per city?

So i cant transit DOH 3 times (less than 24hrs) but can transit, stopover then transit?

So this itinerary would be ok?

xx-CDG-DOH(transit)-SIN(STOP)
separate SIN-SYD-SIN on SQ
SIN-DOH(STOP)-MLE(STOP)
MLE-DOH(TRANSIT)-SIN(TRANSIT)-SYD

That seems to be within the distance and can;t see any rules broken. Your xx-CDG will not be able to go via DOH

 

[MEL_Traveller]

There is a known issue (error) with UL flights. You are correct they offer neither PEY of F.

 

[motef]

That seems to be within the distance and can;t see any rules broken. Your xx-CDG will not be able to go via DOH

My complete itinerary is
SYD-HND-LHR-EDI(stop)
EDI-CDG via land
CDG-DOH-SIN(stop)
SIN-SYD-SIN (with SQ and outside this OWA)
SIN-DOH(stop)
DOH-MLE(stop)
MLE-DOH-SIN-BNE (stop)

GCmap has it at 34,270 mi
11 segment path:
SYD HND 4,837 mi
HND LHR5,974 mi
LHR EDI 331 mi
EDI CDG 541 mi
CDG DOH 3,091 mi
DOH SIN 3,857 mi
SIN DOH 3,857 mi
DOH MLE 2,055 mi
MLE DOH 2,055 mi
DOH SIN 3,857 mi
SIN BNE 3,816 mi

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

My complete itinerary is
SYD-HND-LHR-EDI(stop)
EDI-CDG via land
CDG-DOH-SIN(stop)
SIN-SYD-SIN (with SQ and outside this OWA)
SIN-DOH(stop)
DOH-MLE(stop)
MLE-DOH-SIN-BNE (stop)

GCmap has it at 34,270 mi
11 segment path:
SYD HND 4,837 mi
HND LHR5,974 mi
LHR EDI 331 mi
EDI CDG 541 mi
CDG DOH 3,091 mi
DOH SIN 3,857 mi
SIN DOH 3,857 mi
DOH MLE 2,055 mi
MLE DOH 2,055 mi
DOH SIN 3,857 mi
SIN BNE 3,816 mi

Don’t forget that you also need to account for the distance from BNE back to SYD after your last sector.

Rule 14.5.3
A one way oneworld Classic Flight Reward Itinerary will be charged as a return Itinerary. oneworld Classic Flight Reward Itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of Qantas Points required to redeem the Flight Reward and the maximum distance for the Itinerary.

This might not apply in your case, but also be aware that the sector distances that QF use are not always the same as GCmap. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. So sometimes, even when you think you’ve got a couple of hundred miles to spare, you can still be assessed as ‘over-distance’.

 

[muppet]

I have an award in J that includes an Atlantic crossing from East Coast US to Europe ... does anyone have a tips on award availability that is not BA ... I just can't stomach the USD$700 BA surcharge, it's almost equivalent to the regular sale fares on offer.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have an award in J that includes an Atlantic crossing from East Coast US to Europe ... does anyone have a tips on award availability that is not BA ... I just can't stomach the USD$700 BA surcharge, it's almost equivalent to the regular sale fares on offer.

AA usually has pretty good availability out of JFK, to LHR at least. That removes the bulk of the fuel surcharges. Connect on BA out of London to anywhere in europe.

If using the Qantas multi city tool they don’t like routing on AA via JFK for some reason… want to put you via ORD or DFW in coach, or BA services out of JFK with surcharge. Breaking the flight down from origin city to new york (usually la guardia) and then JFK-LHR should do the trick.

You can also use the Alaska Airlines search tool for connections on AA.

 

[vetrade]

I have an award in J that includes an Atlantic crossing from East Coast US to Europe ... does anyone have a tips on award availability that is not BA ... I just can't stomach the USD$700 BA surcharge, it's almost equivalent to the regular sale fares on offer.

IB is another option but it depends on whether they service the particular cities you want to connect. A few years ago we flew MIA - MAD with IB in J and were very pleased with it. The quality of IB's intra-Europe offerings is a whole different story, though.

 

[vetrade]

Got lucky today and an agent in the Hobart Call Centre answered after over 4hrs on hold (no call back option these days). Needed to make some changes when some preferred flights opened up. The lucky part was the fact she knew what she was doing.
The changes I wanted were done quickly but I was surprised by a couple of comments:
Firstly, the re-calculation of the taxes was taking time so I was told "they don't look like they would have changed much so it might be easy to just leave them the same"
Er, no, you need a new pencil - I'd prefer the $300 refund I'm due please!
Second surprise comment was that the taxes for J itineraries are "based on the full economy flex fare".
Couldn't understand that one.

 

[Mattg]

I have an award in J that includes an Atlantic crossing from East Coast US to Europe ... does anyone have a tips on award availability that is not BA ... I just can't stomach the USD$700 BA surcharge, it's almost equivalent to the regular sale fares on offer.

Try Iberia BOS-MAD or JFK-MAD.

 

[jkcfc]

Back trying to book our honeymoon once again.

Goals:

• Maldives for honeymoon
• 2 holidays in 2022 using OWA
• Qsuites* where possible (use Doha as a base)

May 2022
MEL-KUL*-DOH*-MLE (Stop 1)
MLE*-DOH (Stop 2)

Sep 2022
DOH*-JFK-DFW-AUS (Stop 3)
AUS-CUN (Stop 4)
CUN-DFW-HND (Stop 5)
NRT-MEL

33,790 miles

Need separate award bookings for DOH-MEL in May and MEL-DOH in Sep.

Questions:

• Is it better to book the 6 flight segment online then call up and add all the other flights we want to fit in (e.g. JFK-CUN etc)?
• Is it possible to use points to get back to MEL maybe via SIN once we hit Stop 2? I’ve had difficulty trying to search this – is there a way to do it where the reward starts outside of Aus?
• I thought we could book 1x J each back to Doha – 1 from Mel, 1 from Ade and if another seat opens up cancel the existing booking.
• Is there anything I’m missing that might not make this possible?

 

[jkcfc]

Back trying to book our honeymoon once again.

Goals:

• Maldives for honeymoon
• 2 holidays in 2022 using OWA
• Qsuites* where possible (use Doha as a base)

May 2022
MEL-KUL*-DOH*-MLE (Stop 1)
MLE*-DOH (Stop 2)

Sep 2022
DOH*-JFK-DFW-AUS (Stop 3)
AUS-CUN (Stop 4)
CUN-DFW-HND (Stop 5)
NRT-MEL

33,790 miles

Need separate award bookings for DOH-MEL in May and MEL-DOH in Sep.

Questions:

• Is it better to book the 6 flight segment online then call up and add all the other flights we want to fit in (e.g. JFK-CUN etc)?
• Is it possible to use points to get back to MEL maybe via SIN once we hit Stop 2? I’ve had difficulty trying to search this – is there a way to do it where the reward starts outside of Aus?
• I thought we could book 1x J each back to Doha – 1 from Mel, 1 from Ade and if another seat opens up cancel the existing booking.
• Is there anything I’m missing that might not make this possible?

I thought I could book the May trip, DOH-JFK & NRT-MEL legs online now as it met all the tips from this article (Qantas Website Error Codes (And How to Avoid Them)) however it comes up with the following error each time:

• An error has occurred in our central database. Please contact us for further information. (4002 [7597])

Would it be worth trying to book any legs individually then getting them combined into a OWA?

 

[vetrade]

jkcfc,
OWA rules are that you can't make more than one departure from your country of origin. Specifically in your case, you can't fly back into Aus from DFW and then fly out again to CUN.
To get a 2-trips-in-one OWA to work you should start from somewhere outside Aus such as SIN or HKG or even AKL. You could then start your trip with, say, SIN - MEL - KUL etc. SIN would then become your country of origin so the multiple departure rule would then apply to that.

Point 2:
"Would it be worth trying to book any legs individually then getting them combined into a OWA?"
Can't do that either - all flights need to be on the one booking number and you cannot merge separate bookings.
This thread covered this topic just a few pages back

 

[motef]

jkcfc,
OWA rules are that you can't make more than one departure from your country of origin. Specifically in your case, you can't fly back into Aus from DFW and then fly out again to CUN.
To get a 2-trips-in-one OWA to work you should start from somewhere outside Aus such as SIN or HKG or even AKL. You could then start your trip with, say, SIN - MEL - KUL etc. SIN would then become your country of origin so the multiple departure rule would then apply to that.

Point 2:
"Would it be worth trying to book any legs individually then getting them combined into a OWA?"
Can't do that either - all flights need to be on the one booking number and you cannot merge separate bookings.
This thread covered this topic just a few pages back

AUS is Austin-Bergstrom International Airport not Australia

 

[DC3]

AUS is Austin-Bergstrom International Airport not Australia

As in Austin, Texas, U.S.A.

 

[jkcfc]

As the others mentioned AUS is in USA (would never have enough miles to come back to Australia). The plan was to use Doha as a stop over and use points to/from there in order to maximise Qsuites bookings where possible.

I was eventually able to book the following online this morning:
May 2022
MEL-KUL*-DOH*-MLE (Stop 1)
MLE*-DOH (Stop 2)
Sep 2022
DOH*-JFK (Stop 3)
DFW-HND (Stop 5)
NRT-MEL (End)

So the most important flights are now locked in. For the OWA I need to call to add in the September flights in the US/Mexico to add the last stop and finish with our ideal trip.

I need to work out how to book a separate award flight bookings from DOH-MEL in May and MEL-DOH in September as the next priority.

Is it possible to book a single award flight not starting in Australia (DOH-MEL) or even possible to call and book this?